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Seems like a pretty blatant antiturst violation if this is happening consistently.
by srfvtgb 6y ago
Seems like a pretty blatant antiturst violation if this is happening consistently.
- MikusR 6y agoThey are a private service and can do whatever they want. edit: I am just repeating the narrative I have seen on HN the last couple of days.
- fsflover 6y agoNot if they are a monopoly.
- quadrangle 6y agoYour comment could be read as suggesting that private companies are above the law. I assume you mean just "this particular sort of anti-competitive behavior is legal because it's all within their private service".
- godelski 6y agoMore importantly it would mean the link previews aren't e2ee. ,,BUT'' I cannot reproduce the error.
- mhh__ 6y agoUnfortunately they operate in the US so they can't https://youtu.be/gRelVFm7iJE https://youtu.be/gRelVFm7iJE
- folli 6y agoCopying my comment from another thread: I'm getting slightly fatigued with this point of view ("X is a private company and can do what it wants"). If a company reaches a certain size and has a quasi-monopolistic position so that other people or companies depend on it, it starts to have some degree of responsibility towards society that's beyond value maximization for shareholders.
- tomc1985 6y agoAs an idealists who repeats the "private companies can do what they want" perspective, I agree fully. But this is the legal situation, and asking companies to take any kind of moral stance is going to be an uphill battle. Whatever future we want, we are going to have to push for it legally. Because right now management can be replaced if shareholders don't like what they're doing, given that shareholders are their only legal obligation here.
- mattnewton 6y agoAssuming you are referring to the current wave of private censorship in the wake of the storming of the US capitol, I think it’s a false equivalence. Here people are arguing this looks like monopolistic behavior (that the law attempts to make illegal); and there people were arguing for allowing de-platforming (that the law could be read as encouraging to limit the liability of the platform). This analogy erases the nuance that might make one desirable to society and the other undesirable.
- MikusR 6y agoSignal is used for unmoderated encrypted communication. Facebook is just removing a link to service that allows hate speech and calls to violence. :)
- SuoDuanDao 6y agoSeems some people don't like what they see in the mirror.
- mattnewton 6y agoOr they don’t appreciate flippant replies.
- WindyLakeReturn 6y ago>This analogy erases the nuance that might make one desirable to society and the other undesirable. Could you explain the nuance then? In recent days I've found this explanation often used and generally in ways that I am not convinced of. In many cases, the arguments being presented are done so without any concern for nuance, so I find it hard to expect someone to understand nuance that wasn't originally included in the argument. I get this is largely a result of people only presenting a summary of their argument (as I find any writing to be a summary as words convey less than thoughts contain). Especially since we are not talking about legal action the government is taking to ban something dangerous enough to society to be illegal, but a private business choosing to ban something because they choose to do so.
- newbie578 6y agoWell played. It is their platform, I don't see a problem in what they are doing. If someone doesn't like it, then use a different one.. (that is the narrative, right?)
- Ekaros 6y agoOr build your own... I wonder have we entered in new standard. How long will any new competitor last? Will the Signal soon also see it's end?
- vlovich123 6y agoBy that logic WhatsApp itself offers the same feature set and should be deplatformed.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoI think this is the point. Going after, not the people actually making a call to violence, but some service three degrees upstream from them -- along with all of its other legitimate users -- is madness.
- WindyLakeReturn 6y agoYes, but a private company does not have to be consistent in how it applies it standard. One could even argue the standard is consistent but more complex, something of a difference between 'ban app that allows bad things' and 'ban app that allows bad things which we don't own', though this gets into the nature of what is consistency, arbitrariness, and hypocriticalness.
- vlovich123 6y agoIt's muddled by the fact that the largest tech companies have been known to enter into secret (sometimes anti-trust violating) agreements. For all we know the other companies have an agreement to deplatform apps like Parler in the name of "free speech" but just to make sure that one of the big tech companies is dominant in a given space. I'm not saying I think such an agreement exists in this latest spat of deplatforming. I am suggesting that that's the kind of conspiracy theories such capricious & unprincipled stances take (& yes - they are unprincipled given how much it depends on which political party is dominant when they go to do something). A more benign framing of the conspiracy is that the tech companies desperately want to avoid any trust-busting activities by Congress so when the right is in power they don't do anything about right-wing extremism letting it grow & conveniently when the left is in power they deplatform right wing extremism that has grown, making legislators more anxious to enact any kind of regulation (just like the BS that MPAA played with ratings to avoid getting regulating).
- ve55 6y agoIt would be weird that they'd make it display a 404 though. It's possible Signal could be returning that when they see FB perform a request to them for some reason (e.g. want to make sure no metadata leaks to FB).
- Anon1096 6y agoWhatsapp isn't close to a monopoly in the US. Here iMessage, SMS, Snapchat, and Facebook Messenger by far have greater market share. You can argue that FB Messenger should be linked to Whatsapp for the purposes of anritrust, but even then, there is very healthy competition. https://www.statista.com/statistics/350461/mobile-messenger-app-usage-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/350461/mobile-messenger-...
- domano 6y agoIn most european countries whatsapp is the no 1 medium of communication by far. I don't use it so i know in how many areas it has spread.
- enedil 6y agoSource of this info? In Poland people use mostly Messenger. None of my friends use whatsapp. Telegram or Discord are both more popular.
- tomc1985 6y agoWhen I lived in Holland it was #1 by far (as of 10 years ago) When I visited some friends in Chile it was also #1 by far It's actually really annoying that all my international friends are on whatsapp while all my US friends are not.
- dmontero 6y agoI can also say by having lived there that it is the same for Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. There will always be an exception to the norm, but it is clear that Whatsapp is the number one tool for instant messaging/calling.
- domano 6y agoI live in germany and whatsapp is dominant in all social circles i have been in.
- 6y ago