11 ms·

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies: If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private com

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies: If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce. If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They have every right to kick you out if they don't like your face. It's their property. You are a guest. I think we need constituted digital public spaces and platforms with: - democratic footing (users are in charge) - public ownership - division of power (politicians =!= judges =!= police) - effective policing In such a system it would be for independent courts to decide which Apps can be distributed and which not. Those courts would be bound to a constitution/body of law, which applies to all parties a like. Yes, this will be expensive. Yes, you will have to give up some privacy. But you will be a citizen in a society, and not a stranger playing in a backyard. Maybe the current platforms can be coerced into a system which approximates the above. But I have my doubts. I hope in 200years people will have figured this out, and will look back to this age as the digital dark ages.

john_minsk 6y ago
If they want to be private someone will take them to court for advertising drugs or something like that. They should have stayed neutral.
- heinrichhartman 6y ago
  I agree, that this would have been the better option for them. Now they are stuck with their conent-screening frams, and censoring algorithms. It's a mess. Still. Even if they did take that turn. I don't think they would have stayed truly neutral. Lot's of ways to penalize competition without banning them from your platform. A wolf is a bad shepherd.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  If they do nothing, someone will take them to court for promoting false information about COVID-19 that gets someone killed. There is no win-win scenario on policy enforcement when a company gets big enough.
- jimmydorry 6y ago
  Nothing will come of this though, and the masses will continue to bleat about them being private entities that are allowed to do this.
- xphilter 6y ago
  That’s impossible. Congress exempted the entire internet from court on something like this. Look at the communications decency act.
  - lgleason 6y ago
    only if they stay neutral. This goes beyond that.
    - mmebane 6y ago
      This podcast goes into a lot of detail on what the CDA says: https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/2019/08/deplatformed-social-media-censorship-and-the-first-amendment/ https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/2019/08/de...
    - tzs 6y ago
      That's a common myth, and is completely wrong. In fact, it is almost 180 degrees wrong. Before section 230, there had been a couple of court cases. One held that a particular provider was not liable for anything posted on it, because it did not do any filtering or blocking at all. Another held that a different provider was liable for what users posted, because it did do some filtering and blocking. Congress felt these outcomes were wrong, and section 230 was specifically meant to make providers not liable for user provided content, regardless of whether or not they did any filtering or blocking.
      - SkyBelow 6y ago
        And yet sites that aggregate illegal content are taken down by the government all the time, despite hosting none of it themselves. If you filter the wrong way, the government will hold you liable.
    - jimmySixDOF 6y ago
      The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." -Section 230 [1] https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Six-Words-That-Created-Internet/dp/1501714414 https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Six-Words-That-Created-Interne...
tomohawk 6y ago
Telcos are private. They are not allowed to disconnect calls when people are talking about things they don't like. They are not allowed to drop accounts for organizations saying things they don't like. Electric companies are mostly private. They are not allowed to cut off electricity to people/orgs that say things they don't like.
- kanox 6y ago
  People claim that internet platforms present a novel problem but telcos are a very good model for regulation. Governments should ban large platforms (>10M users) from editorial discretion.
  - tzs 6y ago
    Telephone communications are one to one, not one to many, which makes their regulations largely irrelevant as a model for regulating one to many systems.
- dcist 6y ago
  Telcos and utilities are regulated as common carriers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
scarface74 6y ago
You really trust the US court system to be impartial? Should Apple/Google be forced to carry pornographic apps? White supremacists apps? Apps that invade people’s privacy? Which government should hold this responsibility? Should we have an international committee deciding this?
- bzb3 6y ago
  Yes, as per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221497
  - scarface74 6y ago
    They are all considered “natural monopolies”. They are also regulated on the municipal level. Do you now want each city to regulate apps? Why stop there? Why not regulate what console makers can sell? every physical store can sell?
    - bzb3 6y ago
      In my country >90% of smartphone users have Android. Yes I would call that a monopoly. Yes I think monopolies should be regulated. Not at the city level since that's ridiculous and sounds like a strawman. That comment was just an example of monopolies that need to be regulated.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        Isn’t the whole beauty of Android that it is “open” and that you can sideload apps and you are not beholden to a “walled garden”?
        falcolas 6y ago
        As Epic found out, not if you want to remain on Google's good side. They were facing sanctions from Google due to their sideloading of Fortnight onto Android phones and tablets.
jl2718 6y ago
The only thing that needs to be constitutionally challenged is whether discretionary content filtering constitutes agency in publication under section 230 of the CDA.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  Do I understand you correctly that you're talking about whether discretionary content filtering by a platform makes them into a publisher? This would mean that protections that apply to platforms wouldn't apply to them anymore for things like copyright infringement, right?
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Section 230 provides immunity to Google and similar for content posted by other users and services. The notion that section 230 requires that Google be neutral in order to maintain that protection is not in the text of the law, and appears to be made up out of whole cloth. I will quote the entirely of section 230 below, see for yourself. > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
    - leereeves 6y ago
      > the term “information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information By selectively funding the development of information they favor, YouTube or app stores could be considered in part responsible for the creation of that information, in which case that section would not protect them, because they would then be the information content provider, not merely a provider of an interactive computer service.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
nelaboras 6y ago
The problem is that they have to act across borders. Examples: In the EU you don't need to filter pornography the same way as in the US. In the US you don't need to filter personal information (eg individuals' faces) the same way as in the EU. Or does Google need to ban insults of the Thai king? Which legislation should apply? Already now China has split the global internet in a China and non-China part...
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Is that a problem, or an opportunity? If we create an effective decentralized mechanic to act across jurisdictions, maybe we'd solve more than our immediate problem.
  - Tyrek 6y ago
    It's both. Sovereignty should not be taken lightly, nor do we really need yet another avenue for the big fish (read: US/China/Russia) to start throwing their weight around - whether it be through ""democracy"", troll farms, agitprop, etc. This may only start to become a better idea once we've proven we have an effective arsenal against these ideas.
- heinrichhartman 6y ago
  Exactly. So how would you approach this? If this problem is not addressed, the internet may well segregate along national boundaries (just as you describe).
- acituan 6y ago
  > they have to act across borders. They don’t have to, they choose to, in the name of growth. If New York Times decided to operate in China too, deliver news in chinese about China, they would have the same problem.
  - makomk 6y ago
    What? The New York Times does deliver news in Chinese about China. Has done for quite a while.
api 6y ago
Centralized walled gardens are going to face this no matter what policy they have. Too loose? They run afoul of laws and offend people. Too strict? They develop a reputation for censorship and offend people. There is no way they can win. That's why everything has to go decentralized, encrypted, headless, and amorphous. The endpoint should be the end of platforms in favor of protocols and interfaces to those protocols. Get to work.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  > Get to work. lol. it's your point. you get to work. i'm not your bitch.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > Centralized walled gardens are going to face this no matter what policy they have. Too loose? They run afoul of laws and offend people. Too strict? They develop a reputation for censorship and offend people. There is no way they can win. Yes, they can win. The problem isn't that you're "too loose" or "too strict". The problem is that you have different users with different views of whether the same things is acceptable. You win by restricting your user base to people who agree on what should and shouldn't be allowed.
ipnon 6y ago
Join the Fediverse!
carapace 6y ago
Nationalize FAANG?
- ymck 6y ago
  This is my knee jerk reaction, but then I ask myself if I really want Trump (or Pelosi depending on your political persuasion) deciding how my search engine and social networks work. Feeling a big "NOPE" on that one. Customers need to make it unacceptable for FAANG to act this way... Good luck on that tho. Unfortunately, they have been very good at slowly raising the temperature so the frog (read:us) doesn't jump out of the pot.
- archgoon 6y ago
  I don't see how putting Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon under the control of the US executive branch would solve the problems of accountability and them needing to deal with the laws of multiple nation states. If one wants to subject these corporations to regulations, than it seems one should propose regulations. Putting them under the direct purview of a government does not magically make them start working in the best interest of the people (of which nation?). Nor does it mean that they are automatically accountable; see for example the NSA if you want examples predating the current administration.
creddit 6y ago
Why not just free distribution and then enforce takedowns if something is deemed illegal after the fact? There’s no need for “users being in charge” or nationalization. These two parts especially don’t even seem at all necessary to your stated goals in terms of applied regulation. They would also be disastrous.
Consultant32452 6y ago
>If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods I feel like they're screaming at the top of their lungs asking you to not think of those things as public spaces. I am happy to try to oblige them.
- jason0597 6y ago
  They have become the new public space over time. I doubt they intended this, but this is the new world in 2020. If you want to spread an idea now, you won't walk to your local town a square and start talking on a makeshift podium. You'll post a tweet or a facebook post, or make a reddit thread.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    Yes. I understand. And Twitter, Facebook, et. al are asking us not to use them. So let's stop.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  While they work as hard as possible to have communication monopolies in their respective spaces. I agree with you though, the inherent problem is that they are private spaces and should act like it. That means developing the ability to interoperate with other private spaces (some sort of federated protocol would be required), and not having monopolies on distribution (being able to acquire iOS apps from 3rd party channels, for instance). By extension, if anyone is considering legislation to enforce freedom of expression on social networks, I'd propose a different track—break up the largest of the social networks (namely Facebook at this point) and force them to interoperate. That seems a lot more practical than forcing private companies to hold up public standards of free speech.
SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
In (US) law there are two sets for rights and responsibilities: public (government) and private (individuals and organizations). But when it comes to responsibilities individuals can suffer consequences that organizations can't. And organizations can have power vastly greater than that of any individual. In some ways they should be subject to restrictions like governments, in others they shouldn't. Really we need a third group. Corporations aren't individual people, and the legal simplification of modeling corporations as people is problematic. Unfortunately this probably requires a constitutional amendment for the US to change.
mbostleman 6y ago
>>If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy.>> I don't know what "s/o" means but assuming it means the operator of the platform, no, you are not at their mercy, they are at yours. Just go use another platform. If, in practical terms, there are no other platforms for the thing you want, then that's a different problem.
- amedvednikov 6y ago
  I think "someone"
KCUOJJQJ 6y ago
>If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They have every right to kick you out if they don't like your face. It's their property. You are a guest. Maybe this depends on the laws of a country. Also, IMHO either a company offers their services to everyone or to no one. There are, of course, exceptions that aren't really exceptions. Creative work in an "exception". For instance, French painter Monet was so popular that he could choose his customers.
centimeter 6y ago
> democratic footing (users are in charge) "Users" is a tricky word here. When you have democracy, and you say "users are in charge", what you really mean is "whatever group of users can get a majority is in charge". What it perhaps sounds like you're saying, which isn't true under democracy but is desirable, is "individual users are in charge", i.e. you are in charge of your own data and content.
Thorentis 6y ago
Putting users in charge does not solve censorship problems. The majority opinion - if it is in favour of censorship - will censor competing opinions. Public ownership does not solve censorship. See: the CCP. Effective policing does not solve censorship. The police will be tools of whoever and whatever is funding them. The only way to combat censorship is through decentralised and distributed platforms that are made publicly immune to takedowns, censorship, and prosecution. It astounds me that people are happy to accept that free speech in the US only applies in public spaces, while handing over control of the best places for spreading information to private companies. What's the point in that? "Free speech only applies to public space! Private companies can censor who they want! proceeds to make sure the information superhighway is entirely owned and controlled by private companies". But public control doesn't work either. We've already seen government around the world censoring information in the "public interest". Decentralisation, and distributism are the only ways.
- gowld 6y ago
  CCP is not public ownership. CCP is a minority political party that subjugates the public through violence.
  - anewdirection 6y ago
    It is a bit of both. Sure, 'public' becomes a bit tenious (Perhaps 'government' is a better descriptor?), but still applies. Other truly communist nations have had similar issues with despotism however. And as is parroted so often, a government is where the state has a monopoly on violence. The trick is to limit the rights and abilities of the state to do so without just cause while allowing minority opinions to flurish.
- hwdug8278 6y ago
  Blockchain-based Facebook when?
peterwwillis 6y ago
A platform isn't public or private. It's a platform. You can use it any way you want. But if it's not your platform, you don't get to make the rules of how it can be used or how it works. I don't think people realize how ridiculous they sound when they reach this far just to get Google to do whatever the user wants with Google's service. It's a very millennial/zoomer/i-only-know-life-since-Google-has-existed point of view. It implies that people don't think they can fairly live a human existence without using Google (which is the truly disturbing thing about all this). I mean, jesus. Nobody has forced you to use any of Google's services, you literally do not need to use any of their services at all. And there are alternate service providers. We didn't even go this far with Ma Bell, an actual monopoly. If this is about "boo hoo I can't make money off of their platform", why not the same complaint about literally any other business? It's a much more reasonable thing to fight for, say, right to repair, than right-to-make-an-app-that-will-be-published-no-matter-what-by-Google. At the moment, the best comparison I can come up with is food trucks. Say you own a giant empty lot. You offer it to food trucks to come and sell their food in your lot. It's a big success. You make money, the food trucks make money. Then one day, you want to kick out a food truck, for whatever reason. And they say, this is so unfair. We should form a government committee to manage this parking lot because the owner of the lot won't let me sell hotdogs here anymore. Even though they could just, you know, do what they do somewhere else, and still make basically the same living.
jeegsy 6y ago
The solution to this as I see this is that these platforms allow everything. Only block illegal (local law) content and spam. Provide users with powerful blocking/filtering tools. The only influence they can have on content is monetization/advertising. They are free to be preferential with who they wish to monetize. Thats the best compromise I can think off.

john_minsk 6y ago

If they want to be private someone will take them to court for advertising drugs or something like that. They should have stayed neutral.

heinrichhartman 6y ago
I agree, that this would have been the better option for them. Now they are stuck with their conent-screening frams, and censoring algorithms. It's a mess. Still. Even if they did take that turn. I don't think they would have stayed truly neutral. Lot's of ways to penalize competition without banning them from your platform. A wolf is a bad shepherd.
shadowgovt 6y ago
If they do nothing, someone will take them to court for promoting false information about COVID-19 that gets someone killed. There is no win-win scenario on policy enforcement when a company gets big enough.
jimmydorry 6y ago
Nothing will come of this though, and the masses will continue to bleat about them being private entities that are allowed to do this.
xphilter 6y ago
That’s impossible. Congress exempted the entire internet from court on something like this. Look at the communications decency act.
- lgleason 6y ago
  only if they stay neutral. This goes beyond that.
  - mmebane 6y ago
    This podcast goes into a lot of detail on what the CDA says: https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/2019/08/deplatformed-social-media-censorship-and-the-first-amendment/ https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/2019/08/de...
  - tzs 6y ago
    That's a common myth, and is completely wrong. In fact, it is almost 180 degrees wrong. Before section 230, there had been a couple of court cases. One held that a particular provider was not liable for anything posted on it, because it did not do any filtering or blocking at all. Another held that a different provider was liable for what users posted, because it did do some filtering and blocking. Congress felt these outcomes were wrong, and section 230 was specifically meant to make providers not liable for user provided content, regardless of whether or not they did any filtering or blocking.
    - SkyBelow 6y ago
      And yet sites that aggregate illegal content are taken down by the government all the time, despite hosting none of it themselves. If you filter the wrong way, the government will hold you liable.
  - jimmySixDOF 6y ago
    The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." -Section 230 [1] https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Six-Words-That-Created-Internet/dp/1501714414 https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Six-Words-That-Created-Interne...

tomohawk 6y ago

Telcos are private. They are not allowed to disconnect calls when people are talking about things they don't like. They are not allowed to drop accounts for organizations saying things they don't like. Electric companies are mostly private. They are not allowed to cut off electricity to people/orgs that say things they don't like.

kanox 6y ago
People claim that internet platforms present a novel problem but telcos are a very good model for regulation. Governments should ban large platforms (>10M users) from editorial discretion.
- tzs 6y ago
  Telephone communications are one to one, not one to many, which makes their regulations largely irrelevant as a model for regulating one to many systems.
dcist 6y ago
Telcos and utilities are regulated as common carriers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

scarface74 6y ago

You really trust the US court system to be impartial? Should Apple/Google be forced to carry pornographic apps? White supremacists apps? Apps that invade people’s privacy? Which government should hold this responsibility? Should we have an international committee deciding this?

bzb3 6y ago
Yes, as per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221497
- scarface74 6y ago
  They are all considered “natural monopolies”. They are also regulated on the municipal level. Do you now want each city to regulate apps? Why stop there? Why not regulate what console makers can sell? every physical store can sell?
  - bzb3 6y ago
    In my country >90% of smartphone users have Android. Yes I would call that a monopoly. Yes I think monopolies should be regulated. Not at the city level since that's ridiculous and sounds like a strawman. That comment was just an example of monopolies that need to be regulated.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Isn’t the whole beauty of Android that it is “open” and that you can sideload apps and you are not beholden to a “walled garden”?
      - falcolas 6y ago
        As Epic found out, not if you want to remain on Google's good side. They were facing sanctions from Google due to their sideloading of Fortnight onto Android phones and tablets.

jl2718 6y ago

The only thing that needs to be constitutionally challenged is whether discretionary content filtering constitutes agency in publication under section 230 of the CDA.

Mirioron 6y ago
Do I understand you correctly that you're talking about whether discretionary content filtering by a platform makes them into a publisher? This would mean that protections that apply to platforms wouldn't apply to them anymore for things like copyright infringement, right?
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Section 230 provides immunity to Google and similar for content posted by other users and services. The notion that section 230 requires that Google be neutral in order to maintain that protection is not in the text of the law, and appears to be made up out of whole cloth. I will quote the entirely of section 230 below, see for yourself. > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    > the term “information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information By selectively funding the development of information they favor, YouTube or app stores could be considered in part responsible for the creation of that information, in which case that section would not protect them, because they would then be the information content provider, not merely a provider of an interactive computer service.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - ashtonkem 6y ago

nelaboras 6y ago

The problem is that they have to act across borders. Examples: In the EU you don't need to filter pornography the same way as in the US. In the US you don't need to filter personal information (eg individuals' faces) the same way as in the EU. Or does Google need to ban insults of the Thai king? Which legislation should apply? Already now China has split the global internet in a China and non-China part...

koheripbal 6y ago
Is that a problem, or an opportunity? If we create an effective decentralized mechanic to act across jurisdictions, maybe we'd solve more than our immediate problem.
- Tyrek 6y ago
  It's both. Sovereignty should not be taken lightly, nor do we really need yet another avenue for the big fish (read: US/China/Russia) to start throwing their weight around - whether it be through ""democracy"", troll farms, agitprop, etc. This may only start to become a better idea once we've proven we have an effective arsenal against these ideas.
heinrichhartman 6y ago
Exactly. So how would you approach this? If this problem is not addressed, the internet may well segregate along national boundaries (just as you describe).
acituan 6y ago
> they have to act across borders. They don’t have to, they choose to, in the name of growth. If New York Times decided to operate in China too, deliver news in chinese about China, they would have the same problem.
- makomk 6y ago
  What? The New York Times does deliver news in Chinese about China. Has done for quite a while.

api 6y ago

Centralized walled gardens are going to face this no matter what policy they have. Too loose? They run afoul of laws and offend people. Too strict? They develop a reputation for censorship and offend people. There is no way they can win. That's why everything has to go decentralized, encrypted, headless, and amorphous. The endpoint should be the end of platforms in favor of protocols and interfaces to those protocols. Get to work.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> Get to work. lol. it's your point. you get to work. i'm not your bitch.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Centralized walled gardens are going to face this no matter what policy they have. Too loose? They run afoul of laws and offend people. Too strict? They develop a reputation for censorship and offend people. There is no way they can win. Yes, they can win. The problem isn't that you're "too loose" or "too strict". The problem is that you have different users with different views of whether the same things is acceptable. You win by restricting your user base to people who agree on what should and shouldn't be allowed.

ipnon 6y ago

Join the Fediverse!

carapace 6y ago

Nationalize FAANG?

ymck 6y ago
This is my knee jerk reaction, but then I ask myself if I really want Trump (or Pelosi depending on your political persuasion) deciding how my search engine and social networks work. Feeling a big "NOPE" on that one. Customers need to make it unacceptable for FAANG to act this way... Good luck on that tho. Unfortunately, they have been very good at slowly raising the temperature so the frog (read:us) doesn't jump out of the pot.
archgoon 6y ago
I don't see how putting Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon under the control of the US executive branch would solve the problems of accountability and them needing to deal with the laws of multiple nation states. If one wants to subject these corporations to regulations, than it seems one should propose regulations. Putting them under the direct purview of a government does not magically make them start working in the best interest of the people (of which nation?). Nor does it mean that they are automatically accountable; see for example the NSA if you want examples predating the current administration.

creddit 6y ago

Why not just free distribution and then enforce takedowns if something is deemed illegal after the fact? There’s no need for “users being in charge” or nationalization. These two parts especially don’t even seem at all necessary to your stated goals in terms of applied regulation. They would also be disastrous.

Consultant32452 6y ago

>If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods I feel like they're screaming at the top of their lungs asking you to not think of those things as public spaces. I am happy to try to oblige them.

jason0597 6y ago
They have become the new public space over time. I doubt they intended this, but this is the new world in 2020. If you want to spread an idea now, you won't walk to your local town a square and start talking on a makeshift podium. You'll post a tweet or a facebook post, or make a reddit thread.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  Yes. I understand. And Twitter, Facebook, et. al are asking us not to use them. So let's stop.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
While they work as hard as possible to have communication monopolies in their respective spaces. I agree with you though, the inherent problem is that they are private spaces and should act like it. That means developing the ability to interoperate with other private spaces (some sort of federated protocol would be required), and not having monopolies on distribution (being able to acquire iOS apps from 3rd party channels, for instance). By extension, if anyone is considering legislation to enforce freedom of expression on social networks, I'd propose a different track—break up the largest of the social networks (namely Facebook at this point) and force them to interoperate. That seems a lot more practical than forcing private companies to hold up public standards of free speech.

SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago

In (US) law there are two sets for rights and responsibilities: public (government) and private (individuals and organizations). But when it comes to responsibilities individuals can suffer consequences that organizations can't. And organizations can have power vastly greater than that of any individual. In some ways they should be subject to restrictions like governments, in others they shouldn't. Really we need a third group. Corporations aren't individual people, and the legal simplification of modeling corporations as people is problematic. Unfortunately this probably requires a constitutional amendment for the US to change.

mbostleman 6y ago

>>If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy.>> I don't know what "s/o" means but assuming it means the operator of the platform, no, you are not at their mercy, they are at yours. Just go use another platform. If, in practical terms, there are no other platforms for the thing you want, then that's a different problem.

amedvednikov 6y ago
I think "someone"

KCUOJJQJ 6y ago

>If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They have every right to kick you out if they don't like your face. It's their property. You are a guest. Maybe this depends on the laws of a country. Also, IMHO either a company offers their services to everyone or to no one. There are, of course, exceptions that aren't really exceptions. Creative work in an "exception". For instance, French painter Monet was so popular that he could choose his customers.

centimeter 6y ago

> democratic footing (users are in charge) "Users" is a tricky word here. When you have democracy, and you say "users are in charge", what you really mean is "whatever group of users can get a majority is in charge". What it perhaps sounds like you're saying, which isn't true under democracy but is desirable, is "individual users are in charge", i.e. you are in charge of your own data and content.

Thorentis 6y ago

Putting users in charge does not solve censorship problems. The majority opinion - if it is in favour of censorship - will censor competing opinions. Public ownership does not solve censorship. See: the CCP. Effective policing does not solve censorship. The police will be tools of whoever and whatever is funding them. The only way to combat censorship is through decentralised and distributed platforms that are made publicly immune to takedowns, censorship, and prosecution. It astounds me that people are happy to accept that free speech in the US only applies in public spaces, while handing over control of the best places for spreading information to private companies. What's the point in that? "Free speech only applies to public space! Private companies can censor who they want! proceeds to make sure the information superhighway is entirely owned and controlled by private companies". But public control doesn't work either. We've already seen government around the world censoring information in the "public interest". Decentralisation, and distributism are the only ways.

gowld 6y ago
CCP is not public ownership. CCP is a minority political party that subjugates the public through violence.
- anewdirection 6y ago
  It is a bit of both. Sure, 'public' becomes a bit tenious (Perhaps 'government' is a better descriptor?), but still applies. Other truly communist nations have had similar issues with despotism however. And as is parroted so often, a government is where the state has a monopoly on violence. The trick is to limit the rights and abilities of the state to do so without just cause while allowing minority opinions to flurish.
hwdug8278 6y ago
Blockchain-based Facebook when?

peterwwillis 6y ago

A platform isn't public or private. It's a platform. You can use it any way you want. But if it's not your platform, you don't get to make the rules of how it can be used or how it works. I don't think people realize how ridiculous they sound when they reach this far just to get Google to do whatever the user wants with Google's service. It's a very millennial/zoomer/i-only-know-life-since-Google-has-existed point of view. It implies that people don't think they can fairly live a human existence without using Google (which is the truly disturbing thing about all this). I mean, jesus. Nobody has forced you to use any of Google's services, you literally do not need to use any of their services at all. And there are alternate service providers. We didn't even go this far with Ma Bell, an actual monopoly. If this is about "boo hoo I can't make money off of their platform", why not the same complaint about literally any other business? It's a much more reasonable thing to fight for, say, right to repair, than right-to-make-an-app-that-will-be-published-no-matter-what-by-Google. At the moment, the best comparison I can come up with is food trucks. Say you own a giant empty lot. You offer it to food trucks to come and sell their food in your lot. It's a big success. You make money, the food trucks make money. Then one day, you want to kick out a food truck, for whatever reason. And they say, this is so unfair. We should form a government committee to manage this parking lot because the owner of the lot won't let me sell hotdogs here anymore. Even though they could just, you know, do what they do somewhere else, and still make basically the same living.

jeegsy 6y ago

The solution to this as I see this is that these platforms allow everything. Only block illegal (local law) content and spam. Provide users with powerful blocking/filtering tools. The only influence they can have on content is monetization/advertising. They are free to be preferential with who they wish to monetize. Thats the best compromise I can think off.