7 ms·

Serious question: Since Facebook is a private company, does the "if you don't like it, you can build your own platform" argument apply here? Or does that only a

• wvenable 6y ago
  Absolutely! I'm not sure why you replied to my comment with this but I totally believe that Facebook doesn't have any legal or moral requirement to host anything they don't want to. They could literally just punt me tomorrow because they don't like my name and that's their right. Especially because there is no commercial or contractual relationship between us. I am not a customer of Facebook. If you pay for hosting then you have a contract and then you and the company you're buying from are beholden to those terms.
  • piokoch 6y ago
    I believe when you sign up to Facebook you need to accept some terms and condition clause - this is the contract which is signed between you and Facebook (Facebook is referring that document when users are banned, so apparently they consider this as contract). Facebook earns money thanks to its users, providing them some service so definitely there should be a contract here. Now, when you look on those T&C, they are very vague, especially possible reasons for account suspension are very, very vague. They refer user to some "community standards" and it is not clear, if those "standards" are part of the contract or not. In my opinion, the first thing that should be changed is to force Facebook and other services to provide a clear, formal contract that would state what are duties of both contract parts, what rights they have, etc. Stuff that each normal contract has. No mumbling about "community", etc. Contract should be something that is enforceable and has clear appeal path and so on. If I don't agree with Facebook I should be able to court and refer to something that is specific and well defined, not some Mark Zuckerberg views on what is good or bad.
    • HenryBemis 6y ago
      > a clear, formal contract They got "terms & conditions". This is the contract. Formalising another contract would require legal fees. Is every user willing to pay a lawyer $200 to use FB? (and another $200 for Pinterest, $200 for Twitter, etc.) Is every user willing to pay AGAIN another $200 on the next "T&C Update"? If you think $200 is too much, come up with anothe number, and then multiply it by every free service you/someone uses (Twitter, free-Dropbox, free-Gmail, free-GoogleDocs, free-HN, free-Reddit, free-Viber, free-....). FB, Twitter, Pinterest usage comes "as-is". We/you are the products. Since when does a super market have a contract with a potato? (I don't mean to insult, but really..). Unless they (FB, or any service provider - paid or free) clearly discriminates against someone (e.g. "you are man/woman/black/asian/etc. and we don't like people like you here") and then they kick out FB every man/woman/black/asian/etc. person, feel free to sue them (more legal fees.. I see a pattern here) :) But if it's not a discrimination issue, then please tell me ONE person that hasn't dropped an f-bomb "f... you/this/him/her/them/.." or some other profanity on a FB post, a FB comment, on FB-messenger message. In that spirit everyone is eligible to receive a red card, and it's down to FB to kick someone out anytime they want or anytime they get provoked. E.g. HenryBemis is trashing us on HN.. HenryBemis wrote "f... this <name_of_politician>", thus HenryBemis violated the policy about swearing, threatening violence, sexual content, yada-yada-yada. A couple of days ago we saw a post on someone sending a "accidentally, partial nude photo" over messenger to a friend of his, and this got him expelled from FB. I clearly understand the capabilities of FB vs mine. I think more people should see these facts coldly.
      • organsnyder 6y ago
        Formalizing contracts doesn't require a lawyer. Of course, it's usually in your best interest to pay a lawyer to review something before you sign it.
  • belorn 6y ago
    Paying for hosting and signing contracts won't behold any company either, because any hosting company will have terms in their service contract that give them the right to discontinue the service at their discretion. A lot of people on HN also argue that companies has a right to decide which customers they want to have an association with, and thus there is no legal or moral requirement to continue hosting customer, regardless if payment is involved.
    • wvenable 6y ago
      As a paying customer, you can negotiate whatever terms you want. They will want the ability to discontinue your service and you will conversely want that ability as well. However you can negotiate the exact terms as well as any notice periods, etc. You have no consideration relationship with Facebook. You haven't entered into a contract. You are just filling out forms on a website.
      • oarsinsync 6y ago
        > As a paying customer, you can negotiate whatever terms you want. They will want the ability to discontinue your service and you will conversely want that ability as well. However you can negotiate the exact terms as well as any notice periods, etc. Theoretically, yes. In reality, I’m too small an account to warrant anything besides boilerplate. The big boys may be able to negotiate. I cannot.
        • wvenable 6y ago
          I've negotiated contracts for a single server at a data center. You don't have to be huge to have some negotiating power. Now it's possible you are so extremely deplorable that nobody is willing to take your money but I think that is society functioning as it should. People are still willing to put up with a lot when money is involved.
          • oarsinsync 6y ago
            If I was so extremely deplorable, more people would give me their money enabling me to increase my bargaining position. Alas, I’m just a regular boring schmuck.
  • adamcstephens 6y ago
    For many people, rightly or wrongly, Facebook has become a de facto way to communicate socially and for their business. It has become to big to make the sole decisions on who can and cannot be on the platform. It should be treated as a utility, just like phone and internet companies should be.
    • wvenable 6y ago
      This is a poor argument. Facebook provides an HTML form and database for free and lots of people use it so it's a utility? That argument doesn't hold a lot of water. Phone and Internet requires literal physical infrastructure that crosses public and private property, you pay for it, and they are natural monopolies because of that. Facebook is nothing by comparison.
      • UShouldBWorking 6y ago
        Not true at all, you Are totally discounting the fact that networks have value. The Bitcoin network is worth billions. The code is easy to fork but no one will use it. Facebook's network is no less valuable (and impossible to reproduce) as a physical network of telephone lines. Facebook's network is EXACTLY the same as the phone company's physical network and should be regulated as such.
      • adamcstephens 6y ago
        No, Facebook provides a social network with billions of users and businesses relying on it for communication. Facebook requires literal physical infrastructure that is distributed around the US and the world, with interconnections in between. The two massive data centers they just built near me make that pretty damn clear. Perhaps you may not like the suggestion that I offered, but you’re minimizing what Facebook has become and what it takes to run at that scale.
        • wvenable 6y ago
          You are mischaracterized the situation to make your point. Facebook's infrastructure is all private and not at all unique. The interconnections are the Internet. Anyone can compete with Facebook. You can't create your own telephone poles or run your own railways but you can certainly do everything that Facebook is doing. As for the businesses that rely on it -- they choose to use that platform, for free, knowing exactly what they're getting into. There are thousands of times more businesses that do not rely on Facebook than those that do. Facebook is not some key infrastructure; if it all went away tomorrow it's a minor inconvenience at worst.
  • exporectomy 6y ago
    Do you believe Facebook has no legal or moral requirement to host content from people regardless of their race? I don't quite know the law in America, but I'm more interested in the moral question. Is racial discrimination by a company like Facebook morally acceptable to you regardless of whether it's legal or not?
    • wvenable 6y ago
      Facebook is no different than any other business in this case. If you walk into a restaurant and you are rude to the waiters or you cause a commotion that restaurant can refuse your service and kick you out. Or heck, maybe they just want to close early. Legal and moral. If you are Black and walk into a restaurant and you are refused service that is both illegal (in the US) and immoral.
      • exporectomy 6y ago
        I see. What if you walk in and are somebody named wvenable so they kick you out? As you've said, you believe they have that right. What if you walk in and are ginger so they kick you out? Have poor eyesight? Are dressed in the costume of a religion they don't like? Are dressed in the costume of a political ideology they don't like? I'm trying to work out a set of fundamental principals are would distinguish good discrimination from bad. I often see people, such as yourself, adamantly insisting that some kinds are good or some are bad but the distinction seems arbitrary.
        • wvenable 6y ago
          US law has defined a few protected classes (race, color, religion, sex, age, and disability). Is that a perfect list? Probably not. Is it a reasonable legal and moral framework, I think so. Based on that protected class list, you can probably work out my answers to your questions easily. So it's not that arbitrary. I could reverse this and ask your the same type of questions. As a business owner, am I not allowed to have any control over who and what business that I do? If I allow posts on my website, I must allow Nazi hate posts? If I allow images, I must allow all images except those that are illegal? If you're being rude to my workers, I can't turn you away, I just have to take it? If you say yes, I'd like how that is fair to me. If you say no, then that is also arbitrary, right?
  • complexmango 6y ago
    What are your thoughts on certain bakers refusing to bake certain cakes, and refusing payment for them as well?
• neltnerb 6y ago
  Of course, they have the right to do whatever. What is interesting is the timing. Why is Facebook comfortable demonstrating to what extent they are somehow linked to wall street? That's just an odd choice, I wouldn't have made a connection between them if they hadn't actively moved to harm their own brand in order to protect markets. That should ring alarm bells regardless of legality.
  • TeeMassive 6y ago
    > Of course, they have the right to do whatever. If they collude to manipulate the market they are committing a crime.
  • sthnblllII 6y ago
    Rich people go to parties you're not invited to. They close ranks, we should too.
• oliverx0 6y ago
  Of course it applies here. The problem with Facebook doing this is that it diminishes their brand, product and trust users have in the platform. Re: Robinhood, it is a completely different story. What Robinhood did in this case is market manipulation. They only allowed people to sell the stock and not to buy it. That is (I think) illegal.
  • caseysoftware 6y ago
    If so, it requires someone to take action against them. Since the CEO of the Nasdaq suggested a trading halt to let hedge funds "recalibrate"[0] it's going to take State AGs or similar to take action. 0 - https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/nasdaq-ceo-suggests-halt-to-trading-to-allow-big-investors-to-e2-80-98recalibrate-their-positions-e2-80-99-to-combat-reddit-users/ar-BB1d9gUA https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/nasdaq-ceo-suggest...
    • jb775 6y ago
      The CEO of Nasdaq is owned by those hedge funds. Just like Janet Yellen is owned by them[1]. Halting trading would cause the price to plummet, and the Hedge funds would save billions. THIS is why they're calling for a trading halt. https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/28/janet-yellen-gamestop-citadel/ https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/28/janet-yellen-gamestop-cit...
• vmception 6y ago
  It still applies. It applied when we were talking about conservatives, it applied when people were wondering about the "slippery slope" which we are clearly at the bottom of for a while now, it applies now. I don't care how people get there. New platform. Use the correct technologies to be more impervious to top down arbitrary decisions, build a real appeals process, build representatives.
• bawolff 6y ago
  I disagree, its consistent to think that people who violate facebooks policies should go build it themselves once blocked, but that this does not violate them meaningfully (saying something sarcastically is not the same as actually saying it), and that facebook should consistently follow its own rules. There's a definite middle ground between facebook should be able to do whatever it wants with impunity and facebook should never be able to moderate anything ever.
• loopz 6y ago
  Why would you even bring in partisan politics? Sounds like lack of principles, and total ignorance how moderation, admin rights, privatization and rights of association works.
  • jb775 6y ago
    Ah the classic "How dare you" response when being called out for hypocrisy.
    • loopz 6y ago
      Where is the hypocricy though? The same principles apply to private property in this case too. No special laws required for special people. I grant it's formed as a bit of hyperbole. It should give people pause what full privatization and deregulation may mean.
• EliRivers 6y ago
  Since Facebook is a private company They haven't been a private company since 2012.
  • Rexxar 6y ago
    He problably just mean "not owned by state". The public/private meaning in English is a false friend for lots of non native speakers.
• girvo 6y ago
  You’ve posted this comment multiple times — copy pasted even. Got an axe to grind?
  • jb775 6y ago
    I do have an axe to grind considering many of these people had the opposite reaction when it favored their leftist politics.
    • wvenable 6y ago
      Do you have specific individuals in mind? Because HN is a collective of a lot of people. I, for one, as posted had the same reaction both times. Not every opinion is informed only by partisan position. I just believe in private ownership and personal rights. I believe in free speech but not in compelled speech.