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It's well within their rights as a private company, right? We need to have a serious discussion about the power these FAANGs are exerting and we need to stop ma

It's well within their rights as a private company, right? We need to have a serious discussion about the power these FAANGs are exerting and we need to stop making excuses for them.

amelius 6y ago
Yes, the FAANGs are very close to being public utilities, and therefore deserve a special treatment.
- root_axis 6y ago
  I see this repeated often, but it's totally incorrect, they do not resemble utilities at all, not even a little bit. I think everyone agrees these companies need more regulation, but the idea that they are in any way comparable to utilities is absurd.
  - goodluckchuck 6y ago
    How so?
    - root_axis 6y ago
      It's absurd on its face and this topic has been beaten to death on this forum; the burden of demonstrating why social media websites are like utilities rests on the person making the claim. However, for the sake of discussion, I'll start out with the fact that a privately owned website is not an example of shared public infrastructure. Think water, electricity and other basic staples of civilization... Facebook is not an example of that.
    - Ensorceled 6y ago
      I can cook dinner, heat my house, call 911 and even check out government websites on the internet without google or facebook.
      - ethanwillis 6y ago
        More government websites are relying on infrastructure from these companies. S3, cloudfront, etc. And don't worry soon enough Amazon themselves will insert themselves between you and 911 https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/modernizing-911-to-meet-the-evolving-communications-needs-of-constituents/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/modernizing-911-to... Edit: I would like to point out my original parent comment that started all of this was in the context of FAANGs not just Google/Facebook
    - scbrg 6y ago
      I admit I use some Google services. At the same time, I have no relationship with the non G:s of FAANG, which arguably is 80% of them (though perhaps not 80% of the influence). I'm not sure how they can really be considered public utilities at that point. None of the services they provide are essential.
      - strawberrypuree 6y ago
        Much of the web is hosted on AWS. So, you have an invisible relationship with Amazon. Same with Facebook and their trackers, unless you block them.
        scbrg 6y ago
        > Much of the web is hosted on AWS. Fair enough. I'm sure I use some web sites that are hosted on AWS, I did not consider that. > Same with Facebook and their trackers, unless you block them. That may be (though I block at least some of them), but that's hardly equivalent. I don't depend in any way on Facebook tracking me. If they stopped, I would certainly not suffer from it.
      - stale2002 6y ago
        > None of the services they provide are essential. I use online messaging and online communication more than I use the telephone network. To me, and many others, these online platforms are as or more essential than the phone system, which is already covered by common carrier laws.
        Natanael_L 6y ago
        Utility regulation doesn't depend only on importance. It depends on importance plus access. That's why your local grocery store can ban you even if food is necessary for your survival, because you didn't lose access to other sources (stores).
        root_axis 6y ago
        > I use online messaging and online communication more than I use the telephone network. That's your choice, you don't have to use any particular online messaging service. My cousins communicate over steam more than over SMS, that doesn't mean steam is a utility.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    > they do not resemble utilities at all, not even a little bit. I think that these large communication platforms absolutely resemble other large communication platforms that are currently covered by common carrier laws. Specifically, a lot of the functionality that these platforms provides, fulfills a usecase that is similar to the phone network. And the phone network is both a large communication platform, and is all covered by common carrier laws. The laws need to be updated to recognize that many of the online communication platforms are now as important as the phone system, and therefore should be covered by our existing common carrier laws.
    - Natanael_L 6y ago
      All of this assumes an equivalence in function and access that just isn't there. If my phone company decides who I can call, then I got issues. I can't trivially change carrier however I want. If a website arbitrarily bans all kind of people it will soon be their own problem as people leave with a single click. More specifically, I do not need linkedin, Facebook and co at all to communicate with people over the internet, stuff like P2P software never went away.
      - stale2002 6y ago
        > If my phone company decides who I can call, then I got issues. > If a website arbitrarily bans all kind of people it will soon be their own problem as people leave with a single click. False. I use facebook for communicating with people more often than I use the phone network. Being banned from facebook would have a much larger effect on me, and many others, than being banned from ever making phone calls again, due to the fact that we use facebook for the vast majority of our online communication.
        Natanael_L 6y ago
        Is that because you can not replace Facebook, or because it's merely inconvenient to do so? Because the law doesn't protect convenience in these contexts.
- krustyburger 6y ago
  How exactly is Netflix close to being a public utility?
  - ethanwillis 6y ago
    How exactly does one thing out of a set of things not form the set of things?
    - krustyburger 6y ago
      Ah yes, it’s assumed that 20% of the set is not included but let’s use the snappy acronym anyway.
- TheOperator 6y ago
  I can buy the argument that they could require special treatment but I'm much more sceptical that social media specifically resembles a public utility. If I decide Facebook and all it's products are trash I can pretty trivially not use any of them. If I dislike all social media I can choose not to engage with it at all. I would have a much harder time going without electricity or water. Social media feels somewhere between a public commons and print media, and it's acting more and more like print media all the time. I'm seeing this election the banning of certain sources like the New York Post and the editorialization of what people say with friendly links to approved "non-partisan fact checkers" who are essentially opinion columnists that cite more sources. Netflix is about as close to a public utility as the local movie theatre, which is to say, nowhere close.
jandrese 6y ago
Is it within the rights of a company to dictate what software I have installed on my personal machine? If Facebook wants to ban every account using the software that is within their rights, but they don't get a say in what I have installed.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  Not too long ago I remember people on this exact site making the argument that Slack had a right to determine what browser extensions I ran. Slack also tried to make this argument in the name of "security" when I wrote to them about it. But yes to your point, NO they do not get a say in what users install. Thank you for taking the time to write in and share your concerns. We hear you and understand how important this issue is to developers. As a communication company we want to make sure we don't put our customers and their data at risk, and it's something we take very seriously. We provide a full-featured platform with many avenues for improving user experience while working with Slack, but we need to also provide the security and privacy controls business owners, IT administrators, and users expect. We're happy to continue the conversation about UX improvements and future extensions to the platform. This is something we'll keep working on as we listen to feedback from the developer community. That is a cop out and you know it. An it administrator or corporate is not using this extension and they would lock down their users from installing BROWSER extensions if they thought that was a security risk. Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate your thoughts on this matter. I'd like to pose a hypothetical to you if you don't mind! Bearing in mind Slack is a product designed to help teams work together and is geared towards business and enterprises — imagine for a second we're working with an enterprise considering adopting Slack and their security team comes across this extension (or something like it) — and identifies it as a security/privacy/reliability concern. Our job is to alleviate these concerns. They expect better from us and we're doing our best to meet and even exceed those expectations. We're certainly not perfect and we can always do better — for businesses big and small and for developers. It is important to note here, we're learning from this experience. We're working with the developer to find a middle-ground which is beneficial to everyone involved. We're reevaluating our processes for these situations. We're listening to feedback from users such as yourself and identifying areas we could improve. I understand this has been a disappointing and frustrating situation and I do apologise for any difficulty it has caused you. I promise you, we're working on it. I for one am very excited to see what comes from this. It's been a learning opportunity for us all. Let me know if you have any questions, or suggestions. I'm here to help!
tolbish 6y ago
How was their acquisition of Instagram and Whatsapp legal? Haven't antitrust laws broken up companies for less?
- input_sh 6y ago
  Pre-Reagan, sure. Since then, none. There's zero interest in breaking up monopolies in the US from both Democrats and Republicans. Hell, today's AT&T has more market share than Bell Systems did before it was split up. EU, on the other hand, appears to be slowly progressing towards the goal of breaking up tech monopolies. Leaked plans would shake up the tech quite a bit: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/eu-vs-big-tech-leaked-enforcement-plans-and-dutch-french-counterproposal https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/eu-vs-big-tech-leaked-...
  - testrun 6y ago
    Nice re-writing of history. Microsoft anti-trust was post Reagan. AT7T now is about 34% market share. The rest is between Verizon, Sprint etc. Not the same as what Bell had.
    - chopin 6y ago
      Microsoft has been broken up?
CalChris 6y ago
Well within their rights to do what? They certainly have access to the courts.
Solvitieg 6y ago
"Government is that which governs" Who governs information and speech online? Washington DC or Silicon Valley?
- iratewizard 6y ago
  Silicon valley. Was that a rhetorical question?
jMyles 6y ago
In a just society, their "rights" stop at their network interface.
duxup 6y ago
"It's well within their rights as a private company, right?" To do what? What does that mean?
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  Block extensions, user software, that interact with their site. Remember, Slack did something very similar not very long ago. Only with pushback did they relent somewhat. https://g3rv4.com/2018/08/bye-bye-betterslack https://g3rv4.com/2018/08/bye-bye-betterslack
an_opabinia 6y ago
It's interesting. What would be an "acceptable" mix of demographics for political ads recipients? That is to say, what is the answer to that question where there is no PR story, where Facebook doesn't look bad? If the answer is, none at all... I'm sure we can see where they are coming from. In my opinion you don't really need to do the NYU study. Intellectually honestly, many political ads will disproportionately appear in front of users with different demographics than their census tracts, regardless of their targeting parameters. In my experience many of the demographics of users in many software products are arbitrary, telling you nothing about the content and much more about acquisition channels and technology usage patterns at a particular point in time. As far as I know, Facebook allows some targeting parameters for political ads. So they should publish how often those targeting parameters are selected. Great, advocate for that. Intellectually honestly, that will conclusively show that ad buyers have a wide diversity of targeting parameters that, in aggregate, represent a complex mix of objectives oftentimes only adjacent to a specific election. Almost certainly Facebook already looked at this and found that geography, gender, age and proxies for user's race (like "multicultural affinity") are among the top choices, and that looks bad, even though it may be an important part of all ads targeted anywhere. Is NYU's study going to have enough power to measure targeting in an intellectually honest way? They can certainly write something descriptive. That descriptive, "Well here are some ads we looked at, and some of them disproportionately appeared in front of users with e.g. this ethnicity more often than others, which we editorially chose" - I can see how that is a lose-lose for Facebook.
- xg15 6y ago
  > That is to say, what is the answer to that question where there is no PR story, where Facebook doesn't look bad? How about don't have political ads at all, if this question is so difficult to answer...

It's well within their rights as a private company, right? We need to have a serious discussion about the power these FAANGs are exerting and we need to stop making excuses for them.

amelius 6y ago

Yes, the FAANGs are very close to being public utilities, and therefore deserve a special treatment.

root_axis 6y ago
I see this repeated often, but it's totally incorrect, they do not resemble utilities at all, not even a little bit. I think everyone agrees these companies need more regulation, but the idea that they are in any way comparable to utilities is absurd.
- goodluckchuck 6y ago
  How so?
  - root_axis 6y ago
    It's absurd on its face and this topic has been beaten to death on this forum; the burden of demonstrating why social media websites are like utilities rests on the person making the claim. However, for the sake of discussion, I'll start out with the fact that a privately owned website is not an example of shared public infrastructure. Think water, electricity and other basic staples of civilization... Facebook is not an example of that.
  - Ensorceled 6y ago
    I can cook dinner, heat my house, call 911 and even check out government websites on the internet without google or facebook.
    - ethanwillis 6y ago
      More government websites are relying on infrastructure from these companies. S3, cloudfront, etc. And don't worry soon enough Amazon themselves will insert themselves between you and 911 https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/modernizing-911-to-meet-the-evolving-communications-needs-of-constituents/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/modernizing-911-to... Edit: I would like to point out my original parent comment that started all of this was in the context of FAANGs not just Google/Facebook
  - scbrg 6y ago
    I admit I use some Google services. At the same time, I have no relationship with the non G:s of FAANG, which arguably is 80% of them (though perhaps not 80% of the influence). I'm not sure how they can really be considered public utilities at that point. None of the services they provide are essential.
    - strawberrypuree 6y ago
      Much of the web is hosted on AWS. So, you have an invisible relationship with Amazon. Same with Facebook and their trackers, unless you block them.
      - scbrg 6y ago
        > Much of the web is hosted on AWS. Fair enough. I'm sure I use some web sites that are hosted on AWS, I did not consider that. > Same with Facebook and their trackers, unless you block them. That may be (though I block at least some of them), but that's hardly equivalent. I don't depend in any way on Facebook tracking me. If they stopped, I would certainly not suffer from it.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      > None of the services they provide are essential. I use online messaging and online communication more than I use the telephone network. To me, and many others, these online platforms are as or more essential than the phone system, which is already covered by common carrier laws.
      - Natanael_L 6y ago
        Utility regulation doesn't depend only on importance. It depends on importance plus access. That's why your local grocery store can ban you even if food is necessary for your survival, because you didn't lose access to other sources (stores).
      - root_axis 6y ago
        > I use online messaging and online communication more than I use the telephone network. That's your choice, you don't have to use any particular online messaging service. My cousins communicate over steam more than over SMS, that doesn't mean steam is a utility.
- stale2002 6y ago
  > they do not resemble utilities at all, not even a little bit. I think that these large communication platforms absolutely resemble other large communication platforms that are currently covered by common carrier laws. Specifically, a lot of the functionality that these platforms provides, fulfills a usecase that is similar to the phone network. And the phone network is both a large communication platform, and is all covered by common carrier laws. The laws need to be updated to recognize that many of the online communication platforms are now as important as the phone system, and therefore should be covered by our existing common carrier laws.
  - Natanael_L 6y ago
    All of this assumes an equivalence in function and access that just isn't there. If my phone company decides who I can call, then I got issues. I can't trivially change carrier however I want. If a website arbitrarily bans all kind of people it will soon be their own problem as people leave with a single click. More specifically, I do not need linkedin, Facebook and co at all to communicate with people over the internet, stuff like P2P software never went away.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      > If my phone company decides who I can call, then I got issues. > If a website arbitrarily bans all kind of people it will soon be their own problem as people leave with a single click. False. I use facebook for communicating with people more often than I use the phone network. Being banned from facebook would have a much larger effect on me, and many others, than being banned from ever making phone calls again, due to the fact that we use facebook for the vast majority of our online communication.
      - Natanael_L 6y ago
        Is that because you can not replace Facebook, or because it's merely inconvenient to do so? Because the law doesn't protect convenience in these contexts.
krustyburger 6y ago
How exactly is Netflix close to being a public utility?
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  How exactly does one thing out of a set of things not form the set of things?
  - krustyburger 6y ago
    Ah yes, it’s assumed that 20% of the set is not included but let’s use the snappy acronym anyway.
TheOperator 6y ago
I can buy the argument that they could require special treatment but I'm much more sceptical that social media specifically resembles a public utility. If I decide Facebook and all it's products are trash I can pretty trivially not use any of them. If I dislike all social media I can choose not to engage with it at all. I would have a much harder time going without electricity or water. Social media feels somewhere between a public commons and print media, and it's acting more and more like print media all the time. I'm seeing this election the banning of certain sources like the New York Post and the editorialization of what people say with friendly links to approved "non-partisan fact checkers" who are essentially opinion columnists that cite more sources. Netflix is about as close to a public utility as the local movie theatre, which is to say, nowhere close.

jandrese 6y ago

Is it within the rights of a company to dictate what software I have installed on my personal machine? If Facebook wants to ban every account using the software that is within their rights, but they don't get a say in what I have installed.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ethanwillis 6y ago
Not too long ago I remember people on this exact site making the argument that Slack had a right to determine what browser extensions I ran. Slack also tried to make this argument in the name of "security" when I wrote to them about it. But yes to your point, NO they do not get a say in what users install. Thank you for taking the time to write in and share your concerns. We hear you and understand how important this issue is to developers. As a communication company we want to make sure we don't put our customers and their data at risk, and it's something we take very seriously. We provide a full-featured platform with many avenues for improving user experience while working with Slack, but we need to also provide the security and privacy controls business owners, IT administrators, and users expect. We're happy to continue the conversation about UX improvements and future extensions to the platform. This is something we'll keep working on as we listen to feedback from the developer community. That is a cop out and you know it. An it administrator or corporate is not using this extension and they would lock down their users from installing BROWSER extensions if they thought that was a security risk. Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate your thoughts on this matter. I'd like to pose a hypothetical to you if you don't mind! Bearing in mind Slack is a product designed to help teams work together and is geared towards business and enterprises — imagine for a second we're working with an enterprise considering adopting Slack and their security team comes across this extension (or something like it) — and identifies it as a security/privacy/reliability concern. Our job is to alleviate these concerns. They expect better from us and we're doing our best to meet and even exceed those expectations. We're certainly not perfect and we can always do better — for businesses big and small and for developers. It is important to note here, we're learning from this experience. We're working with the developer to find a middle-ground which is beneficial to everyone involved. We're reevaluating our processes for these situations. We're listening to feedback from users such as yourself and identifying areas we could improve. I understand this has been a disappointing and frustrating situation and I do apologise for any difficulty it has caused you. I promise you, we're working on it. I for one am very excited to see what comes from this. It's been a learning opportunity for us all. Let me know if you have any questions, or suggestions. I'm here to help!

tolbish 6y ago

How was their acquisition of Instagram and Whatsapp legal? Haven't antitrust laws broken up companies for less?

input_sh 6y ago
Pre-Reagan, sure. Since then, none. There's zero interest in breaking up monopolies in the US from both Democrats and Republicans. Hell, today's AT&T has more market share than Bell Systems did before it was split up. EU, on the other hand, appears to be slowly progressing towards the goal of breaking up tech monopolies. Leaked plans would shake up the tech quite a bit: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/eu-vs-big-tech-leaked-enforcement-plans-and-dutch-french-counterproposal https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/eu-vs-big-tech-leaked-...
- testrun 6y ago
  Nice re-writing of history. Microsoft anti-trust was post Reagan. AT7T now is about 34% market share. The rest is between Verizon, Sprint etc. Not the same as what Bell had.
  - chopin 6y ago
    Microsoft has been broken up?

CalChris 6y ago

Well within their rights to do what? They certainly have access to the courts.

Solvitieg 6y ago

"Government is that which governs" Who governs information and speech online? Washington DC or Silicon Valley?

iratewizard 6y ago
Silicon valley. Was that a rhetorical question?

jMyles 6y ago

In a just society, their "rights" stop at their network interface.

duxup 6y ago

"It's well within their rights as a private company, right?" To do what? What does that mean?

ethanwillis 6y ago
Block extensions, user software, that interact with their site. Remember, Slack did something very similar not very long ago. Only with pushback did they relent somewhat. https://g3rv4.com/2018/08/bye-bye-betterslack https://g3rv4.com/2018/08/bye-bye-betterslack

an_opabinia 6y ago

It's interesting. What would be an "acceptable" mix of demographics for political ads recipients? That is to say, what is the answer to that question where there is no PR story, where Facebook doesn't look bad? If the answer is, none at all... I'm sure we can see where they are coming from. In my opinion you don't really need to do the NYU study. Intellectually honestly, many political ads will disproportionately appear in front of users with different demographics than their census tracts, regardless of their targeting parameters. In my experience many of the demographics of users in many software products are arbitrary, telling you nothing about the content and much more about acquisition channels and technology usage patterns at a particular point in time. As far as I know, Facebook allows some targeting parameters for political ads. So they should publish how often those targeting parameters are selected. Great, advocate for that. Intellectually honestly, that will conclusively show that ad buyers have a wide diversity of targeting parameters that, in aggregate, represent a complex mix of objectives oftentimes only adjacent to a specific election. Almost certainly Facebook already looked at this and found that geography, gender, age and proxies for user's race (like "multicultural affinity") are among the top choices, and that looks bad, even though it may be an important part of all ads targeted anywhere. Is NYU's study going to have enough power to measure targeting in an intellectually honest way? They can certainly write something descriptive. That descriptive, "Well here are some ads we looked at, and some of them disproportionately appeared in front of users with e.g. this ethnicity more often than others, which we editorially chose" - I can see how that is a lose-lose for Facebook.

xg15 6y ago
> That is to say, what is the answer to that question where there is no PR story, where Facebook doesn't look bad? How about don't have political ads at all, if this question is so difficult to answer...