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> Stripe and Twitter are pretty clearly the latter. They might be the latter, but I wouldn't consider it obvious. Regarding social media, we've gotten to the p

> Stripe and Twitter are pretty clearly the latter. They might be the latter, but I wouldn't consider it obvious. Regarding social media, we've gotten to the point where even US Visa applications ask for social media handles (and I understand they consider it as a negative datum if you don't provide one). And we're also at the point where some companies won't provide you with respectable service unless you @ them on social media. Regarding payment platforms, generally people expect them to be quite neutral, since getting locked out of the financial system is not exactly going to lead to a great life in the modern digital economy. I don't know at what point these cross into "utility" territory, and I'm willing to entertain the idea that they might never do so, but I find it quite debatable and very much not clear. (Note: None of this is to opine on the reactions to this particular incident. Just commenting on the more general idea.)

bmarquez 6y ago
> And we're also at the point where some companies won't provide you with respectable service unless you @ them on social media. Real-world example: T-Mobile. Their Twitter and Facebook representatives (called T-Force) have better customer service (they are more empowered to help you without supervisor escalation and fix things faster) than calling 611.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  I think that's essentially saying that "Customers who stand in the town square screaming 'T-Mobile sucks!'" get attention faster than ones that send private letters to T-Mobile. It's sad, but at least we have a digital public square?
  - bmarquez 6y ago
    You can direct message @tmobilehelp on Twitter and you get access to the same representatives that respond to public complaints, without actually having to publicly complain. I'm not sure if this is intended behavior (or if it works with other companies), but it solves my problems quickly.
    - mjevans 6y ago
      I don't use Twitter; at least I don't have an account with them. I do view some public twitter feeds others publish. Does hacker news count as social media? This might be one of the only social media accounts I have.
      - colejohnson66 6y ago
        HN is technically a news aggregator with a comment section, but I’d say that qualifies as social media. I’m sure some would disagree with me.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    If you want to do this more discreetly and in the old-fashioned manner, probably the fastest thing would be to contact your state's attorney general or equivalent.
neltnerb 6y ago
I'm confused, payment processors often stop working with criminals, or even non-criminals that are just in "unseemly" industries. PayPal arbitrarily freezes people's accounts for even possibly being scams, why not obvious billion dollar ones? I have never thought they were neutral when it came to actual crimes. That's so much liability, why would anyone expect them to take it on given how risk averse they are?
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  > PayPal arbitrarily freezes people's accounts PayPal kept doing that so much that regulators (FTC? I forget) finally made them stop holding pseudo-cash accounts for people until/unless people specifically requested it. Laws take time to catch up. > why not obvious billion dollar ones? why would anyone expect them to take it on given how risk averse they are? Again: I'm not opining on what they should or shouldn't be doing. All I'm saying is, if you think the fact that it's not a utility is a good supporting argument for this, I'm saying their classification is far from obvious to me. But if you have other arguments to make, I'm not expressing any opinions on them; I'm solely replying to the "it's clearly not a utility" bit.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    I would think that because of “know your customer” and other regulations banks and payment processors have to be able to decline business. They can’t possibly be utilities unless we overturn all the anti money laundering regulations. Am I missing something here?
    - mehrdadn 6y ago
      Can a utility refuse to provide service? Yes. In general, a utility provider may refuse to initiate service if the requesting customer cannot comply with the requirements outlined in the utility’s tariffs or rules. Utility tariffs and rules are authorized by the CPUC. https://consumers.cpuc.ca.gov/cab_faq/ https://consumers.cpuc.ca.gov/cab_faq/ Utilities must provide service to any member of the public living within the utility’s service area who has applied for service and is willing to pay for the service and comply with the utility’s rules and regulations. The utility’s duty to serve is not absolute, however. A utility may deny service for good cause (e.g., nonpayment). https://www.nclc.org/images/pdf/older_consumers/consumer_facts/cf_dealing_with_utility_companies.pdf https://www.nclc.org/images/pdf/older_consumers/consumer_fac...
sircastor 6y ago
Wasn't there a sort-of reverse issue a year or two ago, when the President was blocking people on twitter and a court ruled that he was violating their 1st amendment rights? Is it exclusively because of his office? Could it be construed the other direction?
- suchire 6y ago
  Yes. If he weren’t in office, there would be no obligation
- etchalon 6y ago
  He was an elected official, and elected officials cannot violate a citizen's first amendment rights. Twitter is not an elected official. This is not hard.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- astura 6y ago
  They only ruled that way because of the way Trump use(ed) his Twitter account - he used it to conduct government business, the white house themselves said his tweets are ‘official statements.’ https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-official-statements/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-officia... >Could it be construed the other direction? No.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Is it exclusively because of his office? Because of his office and the manner of use, yes, explicitly, under the limited public forum doctrine.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  Yes, it's exclusively because of his using his Twitter account as an official outlet for government statements. Trump has appealed the decision to SCOTUS, which is still considering whether or not hear it [1]. Given that Trump's Twitter account is now banned, I suspect SCOTUS will dismiss the motion as mooted. [1] See https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-knight-first-amendment-institute/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-knight-f... for the docket information.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> They might be the latter, but I wouldn't consider it obvious Stripe and Twitter are not utilities. Some may want them to be. But I don’t think anyone says they currently have utility obligations under the law.
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  Couldn't you have made a similar argument for Twitter not being a public forum (prior to the court case)?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
jaredklewis 6y ago
I don't have a twitter account and login to Facebook once a month. If both went away tomorrow, my life would continue, very much as now. And I think this is true for most people. If my water, power, or internet was cut off, I would immediately suffer real, life changing inconvenience and hardship. To me, the difference between these things is incredibly stark.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  If you can't get access to a payment provider, you can't launch a business effectively. Sex workers face this problem. Even in countries where sex work is legal, the payments industry refuses to deal with them (in part because the chargeback rates are high for these kinds of transactions). They're forced to deal in cash and have all sorts of problems because of it (not least the fact that depositing large amounts of cash triggers money laundering regulations, and doing that too much can cause a bank to close the account).
- nmfisher 6y ago
  If you were cut off from social media, payment processors, web hosts and mail providers, would you practically be able to launch a political campaign?
  - BlanketLogic 6y ago
    That is a non-sequitur right? Twitter , Google and Apple via their app stores, and now stripe are refusing to doing business not with a political party. They are refusing to doing business with people who have committed alleged(?) crimes. The _actions_ by a group of people are resulting in these bans. Not the group's affiliation. Am I missing something here?
    - nmfisher 6y ago
      My point was more that “just because losing access to Facebook/Twitter means nothing to you, doesn’t mean it means nothing to someone else”. But to more directly address your point, I ask you - what crime has Trump been convicted of?
LoSboccacc 6y ago
> I don't know at what point these cross into "utility" territory I think there's an obvious midpoint missing in the discussion between private and utility, which is monopoly, which do have additional set of laws and checks in place precisely for their strength against the free market. preemptive "there are plenty alternatives so they are not monopolies" - if turns out these alternatives are acting in concert, it configures a cartel, which can get regulated in all the same ways. the economical concepts behind these events aren't so alien as the folk around made them to be, their novelty is in their application to intangible assets (views and online services) but most of the issues are the same as they were decades ago and the same concepts apply, to the same conclusions.
azangru 6y ago
> And we're also at the point where some companies won't provide you with respectable service unless you @ them on social media. Could you give an example of this? Sounds fascinating.

bmarquez 6y ago

> And we're also at the point where some companies won't provide you with respectable service unless you @ them on social media. Real-world example: T-Mobile. Their Twitter and Facebook representatives (called T-Force) have better customer service (they are more empowered to help you without supervisor escalation and fix things faster) than calling 611.

ethbr0 6y ago
I think that's essentially saying that "Customers who stand in the town square screaming 'T-Mobile sucks!'" get attention faster than ones that send private letters to T-Mobile. It's sad, but at least we have a digital public square?
- bmarquez 6y ago
  You can direct message @tmobilehelp on Twitter and you get access to the same representatives that respond to public complaints, without actually having to publicly complain. I'm not sure if this is intended behavior (or if it works with other companies), but it solves my problems quickly.
  - mjevans 6y ago
    I don't use Twitter; at least I don't have an account with them. I do view some public twitter feeds others publish. Does hacker news count as social media? This might be one of the only social media accounts I have.
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      HN is technically a news aggregator with a comment section, but I’d say that qualifies as social media. I’m sure some would disagree with me.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  If you want to do this more discreetly and in the old-fashioned manner, probably the fastest thing would be to contact your state's attorney general or equivalent.

neltnerb 6y ago

I'm confused, payment processors often stop working with criminals, or even non-criminals that are just in "unseemly" industries. PayPal arbitrarily freezes people's accounts for even possibly being scams, why not obvious billion dollar ones? I have never thought they were neutral when it came to actual crimes. That's so much liability, why would anyone expect them to take it on given how risk averse they are?

mehrdadn 6y ago
> PayPal arbitrarily freezes people's accounts PayPal kept doing that so much that regulators (FTC? I forget) finally made them stop holding pseudo-cash accounts for people until/unless people specifically requested it. Laws take time to catch up. > why not obvious billion dollar ones? why would anyone expect them to take it on given how risk averse they are? Again: I'm not opining on what they should or shouldn't be doing. All I'm saying is, if you think the fact that it's not a utility is a good supporting argument for this, I'm saying their classification is far from obvious to me. But if you have other arguments to make, I'm not expressing any opinions on them; I'm solely replying to the "it's clearly not a utility" bit.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  I would think that because of “know your customer” and other regulations banks and payment processors have to be able to decline business. They can’t possibly be utilities unless we overturn all the anti money laundering regulations. Am I missing something here?
  - mehrdadn 6y ago
    Can a utility refuse to provide service? Yes. In general, a utility provider may refuse to initiate service if the requesting customer cannot comply with the requirements outlined in the utility’s tariffs or rules. Utility tariffs and rules are authorized by the CPUC. https://consumers.cpuc.ca.gov/cab_faq/ https://consumers.cpuc.ca.gov/cab_faq/ Utilities must provide service to any member of the public living within the utility’s service area who has applied for service and is willing to pay for the service and comply with the utility’s rules and regulations. The utility’s duty to serve is not absolute, however. A utility may deny service for good cause (e.g., nonpayment). https://www.nclc.org/images/pdf/older_consumers/consumer_facts/cf_dealing_with_utility_companies.pdf https://www.nclc.org/images/pdf/older_consumers/consumer_fac...

sircastor 6y ago

Wasn't there a sort-of reverse issue a year or two ago, when the President was blocking people on twitter and a court ruled that he was violating their 1st amendment rights? Is it exclusively because of his office? Could it be construed the other direction?

suchire 6y ago
Yes. If he weren’t in office, there would be no obligation
etchalon 6y ago
He was an elected official, and elected officials cannot violate a citizen's first amendment rights. Twitter is not an elected official. This is not hard.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
astura 6y ago
They only ruled that way because of the way Trump use(ed) his Twitter account - he used it to conduct government business, the white house themselves said his tweets are ‘official statements.’ https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-official-statements/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-officia... >Could it be construed the other direction? No.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Is it exclusively because of his office? Because of his office and the manner of use, yes, explicitly, under the limited public forum doctrine.
jcranmer 6y ago
Yes, it's exclusively because of his using his Twitter account as an official outlet for government statements. Trump has appealed the decision to SCOTUS, which is still considering whether or not hear it [1]. Given that Trump's Twitter account is now banned, I suspect SCOTUS will dismiss the motion as mooted. [1] See https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-knight-first-amendment-institute/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-knight-f... for the docket information.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> They might be the latter, but I wouldn't consider it obvious Stripe and Twitter are not utilities. Some may want them to be. But I don’t think anyone says they currently have utility obligations under the law.

mehrdadn 6y ago
Couldn't you have made a similar argument for Twitter not being a public forum (prior to the court case)?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

jaredklewis 6y ago

I don't have a twitter account and login to Facebook once a month. If both went away tomorrow, my life would continue, very much as now. And I think this is true for most people. If my water, power, or internet was cut off, I would immediately suffer real, life changing inconvenience and hardship. To me, the difference between these things is incredibly stark.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
If you can't get access to a payment provider, you can't launch a business effectively. Sex workers face this problem. Even in countries where sex work is legal, the payments industry refuses to deal with them (in part because the chargeback rates are high for these kinds of transactions). They're forced to deal in cash and have all sorts of problems because of it (not least the fact that depositing large amounts of cash triggers money laundering regulations, and doing that too much can cause a bank to close the account).
nmfisher 6y ago
If you were cut off from social media, payment processors, web hosts and mail providers, would you practically be able to launch a political campaign?
- BlanketLogic 6y ago
  That is a non-sequitur right? Twitter , Google and Apple via their app stores, and now stripe are refusing to doing business not with a political party. They are refusing to doing business with people who have committed alleged(?) crimes. The _actions_ by a group of people are resulting in these bans. Not the group's affiliation. Am I missing something here?
  - nmfisher 6y ago
    My point was more that “just because losing access to Facebook/Twitter means nothing to you, doesn’t mean it means nothing to someone else”. But to more directly address your point, I ask you - what crime has Trump been convicted of?

LoSboccacc 6y ago

> I don't know at what point these cross into "utility" territory I think there's an obvious midpoint missing in the discussion between private and utility, which is monopoly, which do have additional set of laws and checks in place precisely for their strength against the free market. preemptive "there are plenty alternatives so they are not monopolies" - if turns out these alternatives are acting in concert, it configures a cartel, which can get regulated in all the same ways. the economical concepts behind these events aren't so alien as the folk around made them to be, their novelty is in their application to intangible assets (views and online services) but most of the issues are the same as they were decades ago and the same concepts apply, to the same conclusions.

azangru 6y ago

> And we're also at the point where some companies won't provide you with respectable service unless you @ them on social media. Could you give an example of this? Sounds fascinating.