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It is "critical" in the sense that it is at this point it controls a large share of the "commons" where political speech takes place, and shutting down the abil

It is "critical" in the sense that it is at this point it controls a large share of the "commons" where political speech takes place, and shutting down the ability of people to meaningfully participate in the political debate could very easily result in real world violence, which is what free speech is supposed to avoid.

riskable 7y ago
If you think shutting down Facebook would result in people being unable to communicate and assemble you obviously haven't studied history or even been around on the Internet very long. Within seconds of Facebook shutting down millions of people will have already migrated to something else that serves the same purpose. Then ten years later people will be saying things like, "Remember Facebook?" "Facebook?! Pfft! I remember MySpace!"
- anoncake 7y ago
  An individual does not have the choice of communicating via Facebook or shutting it down, only between communicating with someone on Facebook and not communicating with them on a platform they don't use.
  - root_axis 7y ago
    Or you could use another method of communication. You are not entitled to the Facebook communication channel or any other privately owned channel. The unstated suggestion that lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to effective communication in our society is untrue. Just because the only contact you have for an individual is Facebook doesn't mean you're entitled to use Facebook. My only line of contact to my ex is her xbox-live account, does that mean I am entitled to XBLA or would you deign to allow Microsoft to ban people from the network it owns.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      > Or you could use another method of communication. No. If you cannot use another method of communication you cannot use another method of communication. Even if you dislike the obvious consequences: Facebook, like all other monopolies, cannot remain private property, much less unregulated.
      - root_axis 7y ago
        Facebook does not have a monopoly on communication though... like not even close. If there is any such monopoly (I don't think there is) it'd fall at the foot of the telcos or ISPs
        anoncake 7y ago
        Facebook does not have a monopoly on communications just as Standard Oil did not have a monopoly on fuel -- you could always choose coal or wood instead. Communications is not just one monolithic market in which everything is substitutable for everything.
        root_axis 7y ago
        Another poor analogy. The differences between oil, coal and wood are the results of differences in their chemical structures which have immense implications regarding their individual utility. By comparison, Facebook is not producing "oil" while others are producing "wood", the communication offerings are practically identical in terms of functionality and utility (send text and images to other people), the only meaningful differences are a function of the individual not the company. If everyone I know uses Discord to communicate then Facebook is as good as "wood" to Discord's "oil".
        bryan_w 7y ago
        Also we've seen time and again big players being dominated by newcomers in the online communication space. There's no Myspace, or AOL, or Yahoo anymore and those companies would have be thought of as monopolies in their day.
    - HBKXNCUO 7y ago
      >You are not entitled to the Facebook communication channel or any other privately owned channel. Legally, that is true. I don't think anyone in this conversation or elsewhere is claiming that Facebook is illegally silencing people. Of course, while you are not entitled to use Facebook, Facebook is, like all businesses regulated by various existing laws in the US, prohibited from denying you service based upon certain protected characteristics. I do not point that out to claim that Facebook is currently denying anyone service based upon those protected characteristics, only to point out that "it's privately owned" is an argument that lost most of its punch many decades ago. Furthermore, the people being silenced by Facebook are well aware that the people calling for them to be silenced by Facebook and others are heavily in favor of those laws, so when they hear "Facebook is a private company so it can kick you off if it wants" from those people, it comes off to them as being very dishonest, partisan, and malicious. >The unstated suggestion that lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to effective communication in our society is untrue. Lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to participating in the (large) portion of the public political debate which takes place on Facebook. That is a problem we should be concerned about. We want to ensure people can meaningfully participate in the public political debate, because if they cannot, the alternative is violence.
      - root_axis 7y ago
        > Legally, that is true. I don't think anyone in this conversation or elsewhere is claiming that Facebook is illegally silencing people. You're missing my point. I'm saying that it makes no sense to say that Facebook cannot determine who is allowed to access their private property. The users do not pay Facebook for access and thus it is purely a business decision to determine who can and cannot access the site. > Facebook is, like all businesses regulated by various existing laws in the US, prohibited from denying you service based upon certain protected characteristics I am not disagreeing with the idea of regulations. If Facebook is running afoul of the law then they should face the consequences, but assuming they are not breaking the law, it should be Facebook's prerogative to ban users because Facebook bears the burden of developing the software and the ongoing costs of running the servers. Why should anyone be allowed to demand access to something that is wholly owned, operated, and funded by Facebook? > Facebook is a private company so it can kick you off if it wants" from those people, it comes off to them as being very dishonest, partisan, and malicious. What about it is dishonest or malicious? And how is this a partisan issue in any way? You already pointed out that legally Facebook can kick off any user they want, so are you arguing that the laws should be changed to prevent Facebook from doing so? > Lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to participating in the (large) portion of the public political debate which takes place on Facebook Facebook is a cesspool of memes and fake news, it is not at all relevant in the annals of "public political debate" any more than 4chan. I'm sure you'd say the same thing if 4chan was as popular as Facebook, but my point is that such reasoning is silly. The fundamental nature of Facebook is triviality and the idea that lacking access to Facebook is a precursor to violence is completely unsubstantiated.
- HBKXNCUO 7y ago
  >If you think shutting down Facebook would result in people being unable to communicate and assemble you obviously haven't studied history or even been around on the Internet very long. I don't think that, and I don't suggest it is the case in my comment. I do not think Facebook is critical in the sense that if it went down, people would be unable to communicate and assemble. Please read my comment more closely.
root_axis 7y ago
> it controls a large share of the "commons" where political speech takes place "The commons" are not controlled by Facebook; people choose to use Facebook willingly, and wherever people are having conversations so will politics inevitably emerge. If people decided to have conversations on hacker news and reddit instead of Facebook that is where the political discussion would be and there is literally nothing Facebook could do about it. The fact that Facebook does not control the commons is precisely why they work so hard to engineer addictive engagement patterns: if they don't keep people hooked they will go elsewhere because there are hundreds of options and none of them cost the users any money. > the ability of people to meaningfully participate in the political debate could very easily result in real world violence, I think most people would agree that the existence of Facebook has done more to increase the potential for violence between opposing groups than reduce it, but even if that wasn't the case, people can still meaningfully participate in political debate without Facebook.
- HBKXNCUO 7y ago
  >"The commons" are not controlled by Facebook; The commons used to be where people gathered. Now people gather on places like Facebook. That's why I put commons in quotes. Facebook controls a significant chunk of the new "commons", and therefore has the ability to shut people out of a significant portion of the public political debate. >If people decided to have conversations on hacker news and reddit instead of Facebook that is where the political discussion would be and there is literally nothing Facebook could do about it. Irrelevant to the point I'm making. The fact of the matter is that Facebook is where much of the public political debate takes place. >people can still meaningfully participate in political debate without Facebook. They can't participate in the large portion of the political debate that takes place on Facebook if Facebook bans them, so their participation becomes less meaningful. When Twitter also deplatforms them, and Youtube follows suit, they are left with virtually no ability to meaningfully participate.

riskable 7y ago

If you think shutting down Facebook would result in people being unable to communicate and assemble you obviously haven't studied history or even been around on the Internet very long. Within seconds of Facebook shutting down millions of people will have already migrated to something else that serves the same purpose. Then ten years later people will be saying things like, "Remember Facebook?" "Facebook?! Pfft! I remember MySpace!"

anoncake 7y ago
An individual does not have the choice of communicating via Facebook or shutting it down, only between communicating with someone on Facebook and not communicating with them on a platform they don't use.
- root_axis 7y ago
  Or you could use another method of communication. You are not entitled to the Facebook communication channel or any other privately owned channel. The unstated suggestion that lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to effective communication in our society is untrue. Just because the only contact you have for an individual is Facebook doesn't mean you're entitled to use Facebook. My only line of contact to my ex is her xbox-live account, does that mean I am entitled to XBLA or would you deign to allow Microsoft to ban people from the network it owns.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    > Or you could use another method of communication. No. If you cannot use another method of communication you cannot use another method of communication. Even if you dislike the obvious consequences: Facebook, like all other monopolies, cannot remain private property, much less unregulated.
    - root_axis 7y ago
      Facebook does not have a monopoly on communication though... like not even close. If there is any such monopoly (I don't think there is) it'd fall at the foot of the telcos or ISPs
      - anoncake 7y ago
        Facebook does not have a monopoly on communications just as Standard Oil did not have a monopoly on fuel -- you could always choose coal or wood instead. Communications is not just one monolithic market in which everything is substitutable for everything.
        root_axis 7y ago
        Another poor analogy. The differences between oil, coal and wood are the results of differences in their chemical structures which have immense implications regarding their individual utility. By comparison, Facebook is not producing "oil" while others are producing "wood", the communication offerings are practically identical in terms of functionality and utility (send text and images to other people), the only meaningful differences are a function of the individual not the company. If everyone I know uses Discord to communicate then Facebook is as good as "wood" to Discord's "oil".
        bryan_w 7y ago
        Also we've seen time and again big players being dominated by newcomers in the online communication space. There's no Myspace, or AOL, or Yahoo anymore and those companies would have be thought of as monopolies in their day.
  - HBKXNCUO 7y ago
    >You are not entitled to the Facebook communication channel or any other privately owned channel. Legally, that is true. I don't think anyone in this conversation or elsewhere is claiming that Facebook is illegally silencing people. Of course, while you are not entitled to use Facebook, Facebook is, like all businesses regulated by various existing laws in the US, prohibited from denying you service based upon certain protected characteristics. I do not point that out to claim that Facebook is currently denying anyone service based upon those protected characteristics, only to point out that "it's privately owned" is an argument that lost most of its punch many decades ago. Furthermore, the people being silenced by Facebook are well aware that the people calling for them to be silenced by Facebook and others are heavily in favor of those laws, so when they hear "Facebook is a private company so it can kick you off if it wants" from those people, it comes off to them as being very dishonest, partisan, and malicious. >The unstated suggestion that lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to effective communication in our society is untrue. Lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to participating in the (large) portion of the public political debate which takes place on Facebook. That is a problem we should be concerned about. We want to ensure people can meaningfully participate in the public political debate, because if they cannot, the alternative is violence.
    - root_axis 7y ago
      > Legally, that is true. I don't think anyone in this conversation or elsewhere is claiming that Facebook is illegally silencing people. You're missing my point. I'm saying that it makes no sense to say that Facebook cannot determine who is allowed to access their private property. The users do not pay Facebook for access and thus it is purely a business decision to determine who can and cannot access the site. > Facebook is, like all businesses regulated by various existing laws in the US, prohibited from denying you service based upon certain protected characteristics I am not disagreeing with the idea of regulations. If Facebook is running afoul of the law then they should face the consequences, but assuming they are not breaking the law, it should be Facebook's prerogative to ban users because Facebook bears the burden of developing the software and the ongoing costs of running the servers. Why should anyone be allowed to demand access to something that is wholly owned, operated, and funded by Facebook? > Facebook is a private company so it can kick you off if it wants" from those people, it comes off to them as being very dishonest, partisan, and malicious. What about it is dishonest or malicious? And how is this a partisan issue in any way? You already pointed out that legally Facebook can kick off any user they want, so are you arguing that the laws should be changed to prevent Facebook from doing so? > Lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to participating in the (large) portion of the public political debate which takes place on Facebook Facebook is a cesspool of memes and fake news, it is not at all relevant in the annals of "public political debate" any more than 4chan. I'm sure you'd say the same thing if 4chan was as popular as Facebook, but my point is that such reasoning is silly. The fundamental nature of Facebook is triviality and the idea that lacking access to Facebook is a precursor to violence is completely unsubstantiated.
HBKXNCUO 7y ago
>If you think shutting down Facebook would result in people being unable to communicate and assemble you obviously haven't studied history or even been around on the Internet very long. I don't think that, and I don't suggest it is the case in my comment. I do not think Facebook is critical in the sense that if it went down, people would be unable to communicate and assemble. Please read my comment more closely.

root_axis 7y ago

> it controls a large share of the "commons" where political speech takes place "The commons" are not controlled by Facebook; people choose to use Facebook willingly, and wherever people are having conversations so will politics inevitably emerge. If people decided to have conversations on hacker news and reddit instead of Facebook that is where the political discussion would be and there is literally nothing Facebook could do about it. The fact that Facebook does not control the commons is precisely why they work so hard to engineer addictive engagement patterns: if they don't keep people hooked they will go elsewhere because there are hundreds of options and none of them cost the users any money. > the ability of people to meaningfully participate in the political debate could very easily result in real world violence, I think most people would agree that the existence of Facebook has done more to increase the potential for violence between opposing groups than reduce it, but even if that wasn't the case, people can still meaningfully participate in political debate without Facebook.

HBKXNCUO 7y ago
>"The commons" are not controlled by Facebook; The commons used to be where people gathered. Now people gather on places like Facebook. That's why I put commons in quotes. Facebook controls a significant chunk of the new "commons", and therefore has the ability to shut people out of a significant portion of the public political debate. >If people decided to have conversations on hacker news and reddit instead of Facebook that is where the political discussion would be and there is literally nothing Facebook could do about it. Irrelevant to the point I'm making. The fact of the matter is that Facebook is where much of the public political debate takes place. >people can still meaningfully participate in political debate without Facebook. They can't participate in the large portion of the political debate that takes place on Facebook if Facebook bans them, so their participation becomes less meaningful. When Twitter also deplatforms them, and Youtube follows suit, they are left with virtually no ability to meaningfully participate.