4 ms·

I think a reasonable law we could pass in the US is that a company of a certain size or larger has to have some way of speaking to a human being about conductin

I think a reasonable law we could pass in the US is that a company of a certain size or larger has to have some way of speaking to a human being about conducting business with that company. I also think companies should be able to determine that working with another company is too risky, such as what happened here. Do we really think people are entitled to use Google or Microsoft services? If so, shouldn't those services just be nationalized?

lutorm 5y ago
It's probably more reasonable to invoke antitrust if companies have such a dominant position that getting banned from one dooms your business.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  I'm not convinced that fits our current antitrust laws, or even how you would legislate that.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Antitrust laws address many things, but they tend to focus on a firm's, or a group of firms, ability to either control prices or exclude competition. I'd argue that this incident could be seen as a group of firms preventing another firm from competing.
fighterpilot 5y ago
"If so, shouldn't those services just be nationalized?" This definitely doesn't (and shouldn't) follow from an entity receiving a common carrier-type designation.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  My understanding was that Section 230 is just a legal shortcut to shorten how long a case takes to arrive at the, "Oh, this is their First Amendment right as a private company." conclusion. Were Section 230 to be revoked, my understanding is that no change would actually occur, other than cases related to it taking longer.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    Were section 230 to be revoked, it would not change the platform rights to remove content, but it would enable lawsuits to the platform as they may be considered responsible for leaving stuff up, especially if there were any complaints - so it would push companies to have much more trigger-happy ban regimes than now; having a no-appeal autoban for the first complaint would become a reasonable default strategy.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Section 230 just makes operators of interactive computer services not liable for serving user-generated content. It applies to all interactive computer services. It doesn't give companies common carrier-like designations, and unless they're telecoms, they don't actually have such designations regardless of what Section 230 says, so I'm not sure what the GP was getting at.

lutorm 5y ago

It's probably more reasonable to invoke antitrust if companies have such a dominant position that getting banned from one dooms your business.

TameAntelope 5y ago
I'm not convinced that fits our current antitrust laws, or even how you would legislate that.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Antitrust laws address many things, but they tend to focus on a firm's, or a group of firms, ability to either control prices or exclude competition. I'd argue that this incident could be seen as a group of firms preventing another firm from competing.

fighterpilot 5y ago

"If so, shouldn't those services just be nationalized?" This definitely doesn't (and shouldn't) follow from an entity receiving a common carrier-type designation.

TameAntelope 5y ago
My understanding was that Section 230 is just a legal shortcut to shorten how long a case takes to arrive at the, "Oh, this is their First Amendment right as a private company." conclusion. Were Section 230 to be revoked, my understanding is that no change would actually occur, other than cases related to it taking longer.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  Were section 230 to be revoked, it would not change the platform rights to remove content, but it would enable lawsuits to the platform as they may be considered responsible for leaving stuff up, especially if there were any complaints - so it would push companies to have much more trigger-happy ban regimes than now; having a no-appeal autoban for the first complaint would become a reasonable default strategy.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Section 230 just makes operators of interactive computer services not liable for serving user-generated content. It applies to all interactive computer services. It doesn't give companies common carrier-like designations, and unless they're telecoms, they don't actually have such designations regardless of what Section 230 says, so I'm not sure what the GP was getting at.