4 ms·

>If the private company is "so powerful the government needs to step in" then it should be through breaking up a monopoly. I definitely agree that the governme

by dimmke 6y ago

>If the private company is "so powerful the government needs to step in" then it should be through breaking up a monopoly. I definitely agree that the government does need to break up some large tech companies. But I don't agree that that should be the only form of regulation. I think the government should regulate technology companies in several ways. Here are some no brainers: ISPs - Net neutrality required. No data caps allowed. Device manufacturers - Right to repair. Can't lock down the device the way that gaming consoles and mobile phones (and TVs, etc...) often do. Cloud providers - Greater privacy protections like they have in Europe. >There are literally THOUSANDS of other hosting providers out there. You're glossing over the other infrastructure examples I named. We're talking about a cumulative effect here. It makes me uncomfortable that key parts of the internet's infrastructure are controlled by private companies with little to no regulation on what they can do. And I feel like it's getting worse every year. >So don't buy an iPhone? Buy any number of android phones Not everybody gets to choose what phone they have. Maybe they got their phone handed down to them or donated to them and can't afford to buy a new one. For a lot of people, their phone might be their only computer. Also, vaping was just one example. Apple routinely blocks apps and only backpedals if the app creator has enough clout. They tried to do it with the open source blogging platform WordPress a few months ago. If there were regulation in place that Apple could maintain their own app store, but couldn't block or make it difficult for regular users to install other apps then nobody to choose. Same thing with like a gaming console - buy a gaming console and you could install Linux and use it as a general purpose machine without having to break some encryption scheme. It's clear that maintaining an operating system/platform is an expensive endeavor - and maybe it just isn't feasible for more than those two operating systems to exist. That's where regulation comes in. There need to be ground rules especially when the barrier to competition is so high. >Parler isn't a protected class, vaping isn't a protected class, nobody should be forced to do business with them if they don't want to. So companies should be able to do whatever they want as long as they're not discriminatory/racist about it?

triceratops 6y ago
> ISPs - Net neutrality required. Gee...I wonder why we don't have that. > So companies should be able to do whatever they want as long as they're not discriminatory/racist about it? Yes, that's actually how the law works. This isn't exactly news to anyone.
- dimmke 6y ago
  >Yes, that's actually how the law works. I am really trying to understand your perspective on this, because it's so obviously not true. Companies are regulated by the government and limited with what they can do in a lot of different ways. Net neutrality is a form of regulation that I am advocating for - and it sounds like you're in support of it too which would seem to contradict this. I was looking at some of your other comments on this subject and saw you posted this one day ago: >Maybe Cloudflare et al should also be required by law to serve everyone regardless of content. You're advocating for regulation of tech companies here too.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    Let me clarify. I support net neutrality. Including DDOS protection in that is to ensure that you can't be taken offline even if every hosting provider in the world hates your guts and you have to self-host (as might be the case for a lot of the people and organizations being banned these days). And I'm not an expert on DDOS mitigation, so it might be that you don't have to require even them to serve everyone. I was pointing out the irony that net neutrality was repealed under this same administration. I am yet to be convinced that "neutrality" or a requirement to provide service regardless of content should be enforced by any government regulation above the network layer. Companies IRL have the right to discriminate against their customers based on their speech. If I walk into your bar and start insulting other patrons it's totally legal for you to kick me out. And in fact if you fail to do that, your other patrons might leave and never come back. I don't see why that shouldn't extend online. Except at the network layer. Because if you don't have that, you can't have any speech online. Which is also unjust. I think this is self-consistent. Feel free to tell me if there are any holes in it.
    - dimmke 6y ago
      First of all, this is a great reply and yes it does clarify your viewpoint. I really value that it's possible to have discussions like this on the internet. >I am yet to be convinced that "neutrality" or a requirement to provide service regardless of content should be enforced by any government regulation above the network layer. I agree with you. I wouldn't be in favor of a government regulation at the level of social media that would prevent specific services like Facebook or Twitter from banning things. But the bigger problem for me is that we've all just decided that it's okay for really fundamental things about the web to be controlled by private companies. The web was designed to be an open system and it's slowly being more closed in. There's still areas of openness, but they get smaller every year. And every time there's a new layer of restriction added there's always someone to point out that you still can do x y and z, it's just 10-20% harder than it used to be. When apps for phones came out it was "Well, you can always just make a web app. They have no control over that." but consumers are less likely to use a web app and you don't have the same access to the device. Now it's "Just move to a different hosting company!" which is disingenuous for several reasons. First, any company they move to is going to get pressured to drop them in the same way. Secondly, even if they did find a new hosting company that was okay with them, the pressure would just get applied to a different point (like Cloudflare.) You can roll your own hosting system but it's prohibitively expensive for most people especially if the site has a lot of traffic, DDoS and regular hacking attempts. The fact that web hosting beyond the basics is complex and hard is the reason that cloud services exist and are so popular these days to begin with. So yeah, I think we're basically on the same page. I don't see this getting better. But I still think it's worth pointing out.

by dimmke 6y ago

triceratops 6y ago

> ISPs - Net neutrality required. Gee...I wonder why we don't have that. > So companies should be able to do whatever they want as long as they're not discriminatory/racist about it? Yes, that's actually how the law works. This isn't exactly news to anyone.

dimmke 6y ago
>Yes, that's actually how the law works. I am really trying to understand your perspective on this, because it's so obviously not true. Companies are regulated by the government and limited with what they can do in a lot of different ways. Net neutrality is a form of regulation that I am advocating for - and it sounds like you're in support of it too which would seem to contradict this. I was looking at some of your other comments on this subject and saw you posted this one day ago: >Maybe Cloudflare et al should also be required by law to serve everyone regardless of content. You're advocating for regulation of tech companies here too.
- triceratops 6y ago
  Let me clarify. I support net neutrality. Including DDOS protection in that is to ensure that you can't be taken offline even if every hosting provider in the world hates your guts and you have to self-host (as might be the case for a lot of the people and organizations being banned these days). And I'm not an expert on DDOS mitigation, so it might be that you don't have to require even them to serve everyone. I was pointing out the irony that net neutrality was repealed under this same administration. I am yet to be convinced that "neutrality" or a requirement to provide service regardless of content should be enforced by any government regulation above the network layer. Companies IRL have the right to discriminate against their customers based on their speech. If I walk into your bar and start insulting other patrons it's totally legal for you to kick me out. And in fact if you fail to do that, your other patrons might leave and never come back. I don't see why that shouldn't extend online. Except at the network layer. Because if you don't have that, you can't have any speech online. Which is also unjust. I think this is self-consistent. Feel free to tell me if there are any holes in it.
  - dimmke 6y ago
    First of all, this is a great reply and yes it does clarify your viewpoint. I really value that it's possible to have discussions like this on the internet. >I am yet to be convinced that "neutrality" or a requirement to provide service regardless of content should be enforced by any government regulation above the network layer. I agree with you. I wouldn't be in favor of a government regulation at the level of social media that would prevent specific services like Facebook or Twitter from banning things. But the bigger problem for me is that we've all just decided that it's okay for really fundamental things about the web to be controlled by private companies. The web was designed to be an open system and it's slowly being more closed in. There's still areas of openness, but they get smaller every year. And every time there's a new layer of restriction added there's always someone to point out that you still can do x y and z, it's just 10-20% harder than it used to be. When apps for phones came out it was "Well, you can always just make a web app. They have no control over that." but consumers are less likely to use a web app and you don't have the same access to the device. Now it's "Just move to a different hosting company!" which is disingenuous for several reasons. First, any company they move to is going to get pressured to drop them in the same way. Secondly, even if they did find a new hosting company that was okay with them, the pressure would just get applied to a different point (like Cloudflare.) You can roll your own hosting system but it's prohibitively expensive for most people especially if the site has a lot of traffic, DDoS and regular hacking attempts. The fact that web hosting beyond the basics is complex and hard is the reason that cloud services exist and are so popular these days to begin with. So yeah, I think we're basically on the same page. I don't see this getting better. But I still think it's worth pointing out.