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I think this was true, and legally it probably is true in many places, but there's increasing support for more regulation of popular social media platforms as s

I think this was true, and legally it probably is true in many places, but there's increasing support for more regulation of popular social media platforms as something resembling utilities. I see this from both the conventional left and right here on HN and elsewhere, probably because the monopolization of social media due in part to network effects tends to invite parallels between these networks and traditional utilities which have long been affected by laws such as net neutrality (and certainly the equivalent for electricity/gas/...) in many places. I don't necessarily endorse bans on censorship on private social media platforms, and perhaps they are not a necessary result of this, but it fits into this mold of regulating social media companies with respect to a broader public interest rather than a sole focus on private ownership. A similar trend can be seen with GDPR or the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz in Germany [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Enforcement_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Enforcement_Act

brutal_chaos_ 6y ago
We need Internet access to be seen as a utility before Social Media... :(
- uberman 6y ago
  Yes, something ironically the Republican FCC un-did in December of 2017.
johnchristopher 6y ago
What I don't get is how treating social media platforms as utilities will prevent resharing, liking and content promotion (either based on paid influence or organic upvoting).
- kiba 6y ago
  Remove the liking and content promotion and any sort of ranking, and you will likely reduce much if not all the megaphone effects.
  - johnchristopher 6y ago
    But there are no incentives for current platforms to do that, not with their actual business model.
- qeternity 6y ago
  Why would we treat them as utilities? A utility has roots in economic theory, and that doesn’t apply to social media.
  - johnchristopher 6y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+social+media+public+utilities https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+...
SllX 6y ago
Twitter threw the President off their property after LARPing as Caesar and pretending their lawn was the Forum of Rome. There’s a good case to be made that Twitter isn’t Caesar and their lawn isn’t the Forum of Rome, there isn’t a good case to be made that their lawn is actually public property and should be treated as such just because they spent a decade deluding themselves and others. Social media isn’t a utility either, and no one has yet to make a case why Facebook and Twitter specifically should get special privileges and powers by society when they are in fact just corporations. Somehow or other we don’t treat bank lobbies like utilities and they are arguably even more important to society than 280 character text messages with funny moving pictures attached.
- vinay427 6y ago
  > There’s a good case to be made that Twitter isn’t Caesar and their lawn isn’t the Forum of Rome, there isn’t a good case to be made that their lawn is actually public property and should be treated as such just because they spent a decade deluding themselves and others. > > Social media isn’t a utility either, and no one has yet to make a case why Facebook and Twitter specifically should get special privileges and powers by society when they are in fact just corporations. I'm not making a case that their platforms are some Forum of Rome, or that their "lawn is actually public property." I'm also not proposing that Twitter or Facebook be given "special privileges and powers" based on their potential status as utilities. I'm proposing that they be obligated to uphold special restrictions and be subject to public oversight that, in my opinion, goes hand-in-hand with their monopoly or duopoly-like status in many countries. Currently, it seems like they have the best of both worlds: the benefits of existing marketshare (and perhaps governmental legislation that hampers new competitors) in a market that is inherently biased towards the largest players alongside the lack of oversight and social responsibility that we attribute to private entities.
  - SllX 6y ago
    > in my opinion, goes hand-in-hand with their monopoly or duopoly-like status in many countries US law is concerned with the US. If Canada replaced their phone system with Facebook tomorrow, that’s the Canadian Parliament’s problem, not Congress’. Mind my central focus on US law is within the context of the comment you originally replied to. > I'm proposing that they be obligated to uphold special restrictions and be subject to public oversight that, in my opinion, goes hand-in-hand with their monopoly or duopoly-like status in many countries. You are proposing to treat them like they are special because you perceive them to be something they are not. The fact that you and I are having an exchange right here on a relatively obscure non-Twitter and non-Facebook website is proof enough that there are alternatives, and there are many many alternatives. If the entire Internet was somehow destroyed tomorrow and couldn’t be repaired, maybe some wizard did it, our First Amendment rights would continue to prevail, but we would probably be back to exchanging letters in the mail for our communications and meeting new people at the bar, assuming the phone system as it exists today went with the Internet to Hell. At least in that case we wouldn’t be discussing new and exciting forms of cronyism with companies that didn’t exist 20 years ago.

brutal_chaos_ 6y ago

We need Internet access to be seen as a utility before Social Media... :(

uberman 6y ago
Yes, something ironically the Republican FCC un-did in December of 2017.

johnchristopher 6y ago

What I don't get is how treating social media platforms as utilities will prevent resharing, liking and content promotion (either based on paid influence or organic upvoting).

kiba 6y ago
Remove the liking and content promotion and any sort of ranking, and you will likely reduce much if not all the megaphone effects.
- johnchristopher 6y ago
  But there are no incentives for current platforms to do that, not with their actual business model.
qeternity 6y ago
Why would we treat them as utilities? A utility has roots in economic theory, and that doesn’t apply to social media.
- johnchristopher 6y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+social+media+public+utilities https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+...

SllX 6y ago

Twitter threw the President off their property after LARPing as Caesar and pretending their lawn was the Forum of Rome. There’s a good case to be made that Twitter isn’t Caesar and their lawn isn’t the Forum of Rome, there isn’t a good case to be made that their lawn is actually public property and should be treated as such just because they spent a decade deluding themselves and others. Social media isn’t a utility either, and no one has yet to make a case why Facebook and Twitter specifically should get special privileges and powers by society when they are in fact just corporations. Somehow or other we don’t treat bank lobbies like utilities and they are arguably even more important to society than 280 character text messages with funny moving pictures attached.

vinay427 6y ago
> There’s a good case to be made that Twitter isn’t Caesar and their lawn isn’t the Forum of Rome, there isn’t a good case to be made that their lawn is actually public property and should be treated as such just because they spent a decade deluding themselves and others. > > Social media isn’t a utility either, and no one has yet to make a case why Facebook and Twitter specifically should get special privileges and powers by society when they are in fact just corporations. I'm not making a case that their platforms are some Forum of Rome, or that their "lawn is actually public property." I'm also not proposing that Twitter or Facebook be given "special privileges and powers" based on their potential status as utilities. I'm proposing that they be obligated to uphold special restrictions and be subject to public oversight that, in my opinion, goes hand-in-hand with their monopoly or duopoly-like status in many countries. Currently, it seems like they have the best of both worlds: the benefits of existing marketshare (and perhaps governmental legislation that hampers new competitors) in a market that is inherently biased towards the largest players alongside the lack of oversight and social responsibility that we attribute to private entities.
- SllX 6y ago
  > in my opinion, goes hand-in-hand with their monopoly or duopoly-like status in many countries US law is concerned with the US. If Canada replaced their phone system with Facebook tomorrow, that’s the Canadian Parliament’s problem, not Congress’. Mind my central focus on US law is within the context of the comment you originally replied to. > I'm proposing that they be obligated to uphold special restrictions and be subject to public oversight that, in my opinion, goes hand-in-hand with their monopoly or duopoly-like status in many countries. You are proposing to treat them like they are special because you perceive them to be something they are not. The fact that you and I are having an exchange right here on a relatively obscure non-Twitter and non-Facebook website is proof enough that there are alternatives, and there are many many alternatives. If the entire Internet was somehow destroyed tomorrow and couldn’t be repaired, maybe some wizard did it, our First Amendment rights would continue to prevail, but we would probably be back to exchanging letters in the mail for our communications and meeting new people at the bar, assuming the phone system as it exists today went with the Internet to Hell. At least in that case we wouldn’t be discussing new and exciting forms of cronyism with companies that didn’t exist 20 years ago.