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> 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 wil

> 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.

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.