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Phone lines are privately owned, not publicly. Yes the locality may own the poles, but it may not either. They are leased or granted access to the right of way.
by adamcstephens 6y ago
Phone lines are privately owned, not publicly. Yes the locality may own the poles, but it may not either. They are leased or granted access to the right of way.
Facebook also owns at least some of its own interconnects.
It is fine with me if you disagree on principle, but to act like anybody can just create the network effect of Facebook and compete is frankly ridiculous.
- wvenable 6y agoYou're splitting hairs about phone lines -- you know what I'm talking about. You talk like Facebook was the first ever social network and didn't start out of dorm room. You talk like there aren't any other social networks right now. Or that there aren't other media companies. What's the end game here? What exactly do you want? The inability to moderate? Nationalized? Broken up? I guarantee you can't come up with a single remedy that isn't ridiculous.
- adamcstephens 6y agoThe end game for Facebook definitely should include breaking them up. Nationalized, probably not, but they need to be small enough that the federal government can regulate them like every other industry. Facebook’s scale and power are bad for capitalism and democracy. You may find it ridiculous to break them up, but plenty of serious people in this world don’t.
- wvenable 6y agoI'd argue Fox News is worse for capitalism and democracy -- why single out Facebook? Also why do they have to be broken up to be regulated by the government? Laws shouldn't apply to extremely specific situations or single entities. If you are really worried about scale and power, you actually have a long list of companies to go through before you even get to Facebook. So break it up, how? In what way? And if you've broken Facebook up, how have you ensured that you've actually solved the problem you intend to solve.
- RhodoGSA 6y agoCurious, as your solution to the problem seems to be to do nothing. Does that mean you don't think it's a problem? Here's the problem as i see it. Facebook's and other companies with data exchange driven revenue models have monopolization on some of our generations most intelligent minds and are using cutting edge psychology and algorithms to get the general populace to click that, scroll for longer and be deeper entrenched in the depths of political extremism.
- wvenable 6y agoI'm concerned that you're looking at the trees and not seeing the whole forest.