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It’s depressing that criticisms of Facebook now seem to entirely be focused on them not shutting down speech. At some point, the root issue with Facebook (as i

by gfodor 5y ago

It’s depressing that criticisms of Facebook now seem to entirely be focused on them not shutting down speech. At some point, the root issue with Facebook (as identified best by Jaron Lanier) has been lost in the political noise: their business model is one that incentivizes and enables the creation of a global scale surveillance and behavior modification empire. Getting angry that they are not removing content you feel is “dangerous” is the opposite of fixing this: it’s smuggling in the idea they ought to be presumed an arbiter of speech - that arbitration being the key lever of their toxic business model. If we agree Facebook should be in a position to decide who gets to talk to whom in the modern public square, we are forced to agree they get to monetize that capability, which is their current business model.

koboll 5y ago
The arguments that Facebook is evil are really dumb and I'm kind of tired of them. The core mechanism of political polarization is that the internet inexorably pulled society out of its temporary state of mass media consolidation. For a couple decades, we had an unusual situation where a few companies ran mass media, and those companies all sort of agreed to toe the centrist consensus line politically. Now, we've reverted to something like what we had before radio, which was that socialists read the socialist newspaper, right-wing folks read the right-wing newspaper, etc., if not even worse -- some folks just got their news from the loudest partisans at the bar. We've gone from an era where news distribution was fragmented because it was very difficult, to an era where it was consolidated because it was easy for large corporations only, to an era where it's so dead simple that anyone can do it, so it's fragmented again. Legacy media folks hate this. They blame the biggest players helping people share fragmented media sources with one another, rather than recognizing the inevitability of this fragmentation, no matter what products people use to share news over the internet. They demand a return to elite consensus blocking extreme viewpoints. It is simply not gonna happen. That barn was always temporary, and it has collapsed around the horse.
- cowpig 5y ago
  Your reply, like the other below it, both completely ignored the article and the comment they are replying to. Sure, media is more fragmented now. But that doesn't address any of the criticisms in question.
- gfodor 5y ago
  The argument isn’t about Facebook per se, and especially not the people at Facebook. It’s that providing Internet services for “free” on the back of advertising was an obviously great idea when such “ads” were cute product pitches and led to positive cash flow. But when it became obvious that “ads” was the wrong mental model, and that the products being created were ultimately about the general problem of persuading people by using data collected by spying on them, it should have been realized this was an incentive structure that any sane code of engineering ethics should abandon. Facebook ended up being the best and most successful example of an organization taking this system to its most logical endpoint, but someone always would have unless a code of ethics managed to materialize upon seeing the damage it was causing before it got too far. I don’t judge people who work at Facebook generally, but do think every one of them at this point should resign on ethical grounds. The situation could be fixed if the company (even just internally) owned up to the malincentives they have fallen into and committed to exiting it and leading on forming a code of ethics on when these kinds of system ought not be built.
  - lugged 5y ago
    I stopped using Facebook when they stopped showing you everything in chronological order and started implementing boosted posts and advertising in your feed. I really don't understand why it's taken almost a decade for you idiots to figure out what that would result in. "At this point" What point? The point they started hiding your friends "boring" posts in order to serve up the most clickbait shit possible? Or the point they allowed political parties to ram Obama and then trump down your throat. Or the point they decided to become arbitors of truth? Or the point they decided to censor you over your beliefs?
    - gfodor 5y ago
      I deleted my Facebook account many years ago so I would say the obligation to resign, to me, probably goes back pretty far. But overall I understand this wasn’t self evident for many for a long time and for many it still isn’t. I wouldn’t peg it at their feed engagement algorithm changes, but I think once people started seeing them creating creepy targeting buckets in their ad system, like “target parents who just had their first child” (how would they know this?) it started to be pretty obvious how fucked up the logical endpoint of that was going to be.
- gigatexal 5y ago
  Koboll, might you work at 1 hacker way and be one of the folks on the “inside”?
- iammisc 5y ago
  Facebook is evil because it censors not because people engage in "wrongthink". That Americans can have any other take on this is frankly shocking.
jboy55 5y ago
I think one of the key things is what happened in 2016, isn't the same thing that's happening now. Then, actors were able to pay and market content directly to audiences they felt were exploitable. The current deluge of misinformation, especially regarding vaccine, is shared directly with friends or within groups that people explicitly join. If you browse the 'Herman Cain Awards' on reddit, you'll see things like, - "I'll probably get put in facebook jail for this..." - A misinformation label attached to the bottom of the post. - The post completely blanked out, with a statement that this is misinformation. This seems to indicate some moderation being done. What I don't see from the "facebook should stop' this group, is any attempt to get cable companies to do the same with "news" stations that broadcast misinformation. An attempt to have the FCC take AM radio station's licenses for broadcasting propaganda. The underlying fact is, what we label misinformation is just what a large group of people wrongly believe, and they really like sharing it with each other.
- soylentnewsorg 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - jboy55 5y ago
    "Soft right wing" propaganda? I can't understand from your response what side you think I'm taking. In one point its "right wing" propaganda, in the other, I'm criticizing right wing media. I also completely understand how you posted a screed, without making a point at all or taking a side at all. That Facebook has found a way to have a service that provides content, and not have to pay for it, is one of the reasons they are so immensely profitable. I kind of laugh at your comparison to a warning in front of a show that its 'fictional' as some sort of equal warning and how that relates to what right wing cable tv news and radio have been putting on the air nearly 24/7 for the past 3 decades. My point, is that the seeds of the misinformation and right wing propaganda isn't the leaf node that is facebook, but comes from the right wing media outlets, that are carried on cable or over the air. Its also a concern that no one on the 'left' seems entirely concerned about this, when you can dump on social media.
    - 5y ago
blondin 5y ago
> their business model is one that incentivizes and enables the creation of a global scale surveillance and behavior modification empire. huh, that's the first time i have read this one. the one i read about recently has to do with connecting the world. now this is making me realize that maybe, just maybe, nobody knows what their true business model is?
- dcow 5y ago
  No their business model is very clear: leverage their user attention machine to sell advertising opportunities to buyers.
- gfodor 5y ago
  It’s not hard to ascertain someone’s business model when they are a public company, nevermind one that you literally can start spending money with in about 5 minutes.
sieabahlpark 5y ago
They're a damn American company, free speech should be a major component. The surveilance is going to happen no matter what country. Thinking any other country would actually respect privacy is truly delusional.
- kcartlidge 5y ago
  > They're a damn American company, free speech should be a major component. Given the constitutional safeguards you may be right on this one. > Thinking any other country would actually respect privacy is truly delusional. This, however, I had to read several times to be sure you were saying what I thought you were saying. At which point I just shook my head in amazement.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I think it’s important to remember the issue with Facebook isn’t speech it’s amplification. Algorithmic amplification of content that drives engagement. This is what folks have an issue with. Further bear in mind that “free speech” refers to the government not precluding your speech and Facebook ain’t government. Unless you’re proposing nationalizing it.
  - worrycue 5y ago
    It’s a positive feedback loop. Introduce people to outrage. Spur them into “action” where they create more “outrage content” (comments, posts, … etc.) for you in return for attention and praise (Likes, upvotes, … etc.). Outrage content grows exponentially like the spread of an infectious disease or a nuclear chain reaction … as does the “engagement” of the site. The job of the site is just to get the outrage content in front of the viewers and keep the chain reaction going. Basically the modern version of riling up a lynch mob … for profit. To some extend, all social media use this feedback loop, even this site. P.S. Yes, I realize the irony of this comment.
    - fstrthnscnd 5y ago
      In essence, it works like a catalyst?
jwalton 5y ago
Everyone wants to break up Facebook back into Facebook and Instagram and Whatsapp. I don't think that would really solve any of these issues. I think we're thinking about this the wrong way - we should break up Facebook the same way we broke up Bell into baby Bells. Make "Facebook" a utility. Split Facebook into five different companies, maybe some not even in the US. Each "Facebook" company would have to provide Facebook service to a subset of current users. Allow new people to run Facebook providers. Unhappy with the customer service from your current Facebook provider, or with the quantity of ads? Don't like the algorithm that's running your timeline? Switch to one of the other providers who may do things differently. Create competition in this market where there simply isn't any. Some people will point out this forces all these providers to interoperate somehow, so users on one Facebook provider can talk to users on another. This is a really great part of this plan! Our social networks become based on open standards and interoperability instead of being walled gardens.
- bcherny 5y ago
  In what ways is this different than today’s world, where depending on what you want to do (connect with people with similar interests, talk to friends, look at cat videos) there’s a bunch of options for what service to use?
  - bmarquez 5y ago
    Currently, I'd have to recreate my social graph if I move to a different service. With the proposed interoperability, I wouldn't have to.
    - jboy55 5y ago
      If you maintained the same social graph on each service, you'd still have all the misinformation being shared amongst the same graph members. Its one thing if the content being served is what some nefarious actor wants a group to consume, for influence sake. Its another when its the content produces and consumes themselves. The current misinformation discourse on FB is the current culture, especially the culture of a large group of people. It originates both on and off FB. 'Q' didn't originate on FB, it originated on 8chan, let that sink in.
ryandrake 5y ago
Facebook is not the public square. It’s not even a public square. It’s not a bulletin board or a newspaper or a telephone. There’s no analog analogy. It’s a site run by a private company that you send content to, they analyze it, then they decide what to publish and in what order. The closest analog thing I can think of is Letters To The Editor in a newspaper. They aren't “deciding who gets to talk” or “shutting down speech.” There are plenty of non-Facebook ways to talk that don’t involve sending your message to them and hoping they decide to post it.
- chana_masala 5y ago
  There doesn't need to be an analog analogy. There was nothing analogous about the telephone either but Bell Labs was still broken up
- FormerBandmate 5y ago
  They’re the modern public square, as are all social media platforms. You could have made the same argument about the telephone or ISPs, both of those are neutral for a reason
- iammisc 5y ago
  This is technically true but de facto not. It's like arguing that Ukraine controls Crimea because legally (according to themselves and others) they do. In my experience when this argument is made, I typically follow it up by "well if it's so unimportant, why don't you delete your account?". 99/100 times I've asked this in real life the person responds by saying, "well I don't have anywhere else to say things" (this is during covid). For the past two years, social media is the only public square allowed by government fiat. Thus it must be regulated as such.
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    …so by the same logic, as COVID wanes and actual real-life public squares exist again, Facebook won’t need to be regulated?
    - 5y ago
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
If we choose to go with a real world analogy, the "public square", then why are people sharing messages and photos with friends and family via a "public square". That is not what we do in the real world.
sofixa 5y ago
Maybe you missed the genocide that happened thanks to a rampant disinformation campaign on Facebook? Or the other more benign cases, like antivaxers (the classical ones, not vaccinating their kids against polio and measles) and co. Can anyone seriously argue that disinformation on Facebook isn't dangerous? The only possible question should be what can we do about it to preserve debate, free speech, etc. while stoping the literally deadly parts.
- gfodor 5y ago
  We already have done this over the last several centuries by defining the line between legal and non-legal speech. The point is the line is chosen to trade off these risks. There is no silver bullet but acting like there is, and that this debate is just beginning now, is fallacious.
nerdponx 5y ago
> criticisms of Facebook now seem to entirely be focused on them not shutting down speech. Note to readers: the author of the blog post is not espousing this, at least not overtly.
- smsm42 5y ago
  Mentioning hate speech is a pretty good marker though, I'd give 80% probability the author thinks FB should censor more whoever the author considers haters.
gorgoiler 5y ago
Many alternatives to the Facebook Public Square exist: Discord, Diaspora, Mastodon, er... Ello, erm, Voat. I’m joking of course. None of those make as much money as Facebook, and I think we can all agree it’s the fact that they are so rich that bothers us most. Far more than any public square argument. Where’s my yacht?!
- alexandre_m 5y ago
  I don't care that they're rich. I care that they have a monopoly and consolidate so much power that they can shift the balance for the interest of their stakeholders or lobbyists.
epinephrinios 5y ago
What's going with the "western" world? Look at Australia, UK and now USA. Citizens are voluntarily giving up on hard-won rights like free speech in favor of what? A false sense of security? Saddens me deeply.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bashinator 5y ago
IMO, Facebook (or YT, or any big media company) even being in a position to “shut down free speech” is a predictable outcome of the total failure of net neutrality in the U.S. If everyone had sufficient bandwidth to host their own content from their home Internet, and ISPs were prohibited from also being media companies, free speech would be much stronger.
smsm42 5y ago
Well, there's another option - they are allowed to arbiter, but aren't allowed to control the rules on the arbitration, at least not directly - instead, an overriding entity would do that. The entity would be, most likely, the government, but as a window dressing, an "independent body" whose members are selected by the politicians can be established to give it a veneer of being removed from everyday politics (protip: it never is). While not a lot of people would admit to preferring this model now, I suspect, a lot of them are pushing in the direction that can't lead anywhere but there. Of course, once such body is established, its natural evolution would be first to control all large public speech platforms, and then to attempt to control all speech in general.

by gfodor 5y ago

koboll 5y ago

The arguments that Facebook is evil are really dumb and I'm kind of tired of them. The core mechanism of political polarization is that the internet inexorably pulled society out of its temporary state of mass media consolidation. For a couple decades, we had an unusual situation where a few companies ran mass media, and those companies all sort of agreed to toe the centrist consensus line politically. Now, we've reverted to something like what we had before radio, which was that socialists read the socialist newspaper, right-wing folks read the right-wing newspaper, etc., if not even worse -- some folks just got their news from the loudest partisans at the bar. We've gone from an era where news distribution was fragmented because it was very difficult, to an era where it was consolidated because it was easy for large corporations only, to an era where it's so dead simple that anyone can do it, so it's fragmented again. Legacy media folks hate this. They blame the biggest players helping people share fragmented media sources with one another, rather than recognizing the inevitability of this fragmentation, no matter what products people use to share news over the internet. They demand a return to elite consensus blocking extreme viewpoints. It is simply not gonna happen. That barn was always temporary, and it has collapsed around the horse.

cowpig 5y ago
Your reply, like the other below it, both completely ignored the article and the comment they are replying to. Sure, media is more fragmented now. But that doesn't address any of the criticisms in question.
gfodor 5y ago
The argument isn’t about Facebook per se, and especially not the people at Facebook. It’s that providing Internet services for “free” on the back of advertising was an obviously great idea when such “ads” were cute product pitches and led to positive cash flow. But when it became obvious that “ads” was the wrong mental model, and that the products being created were ultimately about the general problem of persuading people by using data collected by spying on them, it should have been realized this was an incentive structure that any sane code of engineering ethics should abandon. Facebook ended up being the best and most successful example of an organization taking this system to its most logical endpoint, but someone always would have unless a code of ethics managed to materialize upon seeing the damage it was causing before it got too far. I don’t judge people who work at Facebook generally, but do think every one of them at this point should resign on ethical grounds. The situation could be fixed if the company (even just internally) owned up to the malincentives they have fallen into and committed to exiting it and leading on forming a code of ethics on when these kinds of system ought not be built.
- lugged 5y ago
  I stopped using Facebook when they stopped showing you everything in chronological order and started implementing boosted posts and advertising in your feed. I really don't understand why it's taken almost a decade for you idiots to figure out what that would result in. "At this point" What point? The point they started hiding your friends "boring" posts in order to serve up the most clickbait shit possible? Or the point they allowed political parties to ram Obama and then trump down your throat. Or the point they decided to become arbitors of truth? Or the point they decided to censor you over your beliefs?
  - gfodor 5y ago
    I deleted my Facebook account many years ago so I would say the obligation to resign, to me, probably goes back pretty far. But overall I understand this wasn’t self evident for many for a long time and for many it still isn’t. I wouldn’t peg it at their feed engagement algorithm changes, but I think once people started seeing them creating creepy targeting buckets in their ad system, like “target parents who just had their first child” (how would they know this?) it started to be pretty obvious how fucked up the logical endpoint of that was going to be.
gigatexal 5y ago
Koboll, might you work at 1 hacker way and be one of the folks on the “inside”?
iammisc 5y ago
Facebook is evil because it censors not because people engage in "wrongthink". That Americans can have any other take on this is frankly shocking.

jboy55 5y ago

I think one of the key things is what happened in 2016, isn't the same thing that's happening now. Then, actors were able to pay and market content directly to audiences they felt were exploitable. The current deluge of misinformation, especially regarding vaccine, is shared directly with friends or within groups that people explicitly join. If you browse the 'Herman Cain Awards' on reddit, you'll see things like, - "I'll probably get put in facebook jail for this..." - A misinformation label attached to the bottom of the post. - The post completely blanked out, with a statement that this is misinformation. This seems to indicate some moderation being done. What I don't see from the "facebook should stop' this group, is any attempt to get cable companies to do the same with "news" stations that broadcast misinformation. An attempt to have the FCC take AM radio station's licenses for broadcasting propaganda. The underlying fact is, what we label misinformation is just what a large group of people wrongly believe, and they really like sharing it with each other.

soylentnewsorg 5y ago
[flagged]
- jboy55 5y ago
  "Soft right wing" propaganda? I can't understand from your response what side you think I'm taking. In one point its "right wing" propaganda, in the other, I'm criticizing right wing media. I also completely understand how you posted a screed, without making a point at all or taking a side at all. That Facebook has found a way to have a service that provides content, and not have to pay for it, is one of the reasons they are so immensely profitable. I kind of laugh at your comparison to a warning in front of a show that its 'fictional' as some sort of equal warning and how that relates to what right wing cable tv news and radio have been putting on the air nearly 24/7 for the past 3 decades. My point, is that the seeds of the misinformation and right wing propaganda isn't the leaf node that is facebook, but comes from the right wing media outlets, that are carried on cable or over the air. Its also a concern that no one on the 'left' seems entirely concerned about this, when you can dump on social media.
  - 5y ago

blondin 5y ago

> their business model is one that incentivizes and enables the creation of a global scale surveillance and behavior modification empire. huh, that's the first time i have read this one. the one i read about recently has to do with connecting the world. now this is making me realize that maybe, just maybe, nobody knows what their true business model is?

dcow 5y ago
No their business model is very clear: leverage their user attention machine to sell advertising opportunities to buyers.
gfodor 5y ago
It’s not hard to ascertain someone’s business model when they are a public company, nevermind one that you literally can start spending money with in about 5 minutes.

sieabahlpark 5y ago

They're a damn American company, free speech should be a major component. The surveilance is going to happen no matter what country. Thinking any other country would actually respect privacy is truly delusional.

kcartlidge 5y ago
> They're a damn American company, free speech should be a major component. Given the constitutional safeguards you may be right on this one. > Thinking any other country would actually respect privacy is truly delusional. This, however, I had to read several times to be sure you were saying what I thought you were saying. At which point I just shook my head in amazement.
arcticbull 5y ago
I think it’s important to remember the issue with Facebook isn’t speech it’s amplification. Algorithmic amplification of content that drives engagement. This is what folks have an issue with. Further bear in mind that “free speech” refers to the government not precluding your speech and Facebook ain’t government. Unless you’re proposing nationalizing it.
- worrycue 5y ago
  It’s a positive feedback loop. Introduce people to outrage. Spur them into “action” where they create more “outrage content” (comments, posts, … etc.) for you in return for attention and praise (Likes, upvotes, … etc.). Outrage content grows exponentially like the spread of an infectious disease or a nuclear chain reaction … as does the “engagement” of the site. The job of the site is just to get the outrage content in front of the viewers and keep the chain reaction going. Basically the modern version of riling up a lynch mob … for profit. To some extend, all social media use this feedback loop, even this site. P.S. Yes, I realize the irony of this comment.
  - fstrthnscnd 5y ago
    In essence, it works like a catalyst?

jwalton 5y ago

Everyone wants to break up Facebook back into Facebook and Instagram and Whatsapp. I don't think that would really solve any of these issues. I think we're thinking about this the wrong way - we should break up Facebook the same way we broke up Bell into baby Bells. Make "Facebook" a utility. Split Facebook into five different companies, maybe some not even in the US. Each "Facebook" company would have to provide Facebook service to a subset of current users. Allow new people to run Facebook providers. Unhappy with the customer service from your current Facebook provider, or with the quantity of ads? Don't like the algorithm that's running your timeline? Switch to one of the other providers who may do things differently. Create competition in this market where there simply isn't any. Some people will point out this forces all these providers to interoperate somehow, so users on one Facebook provider can talk to users on another. This is a really great part of this plan! Our social networks become based on open standards and interoperability instead of being walled gardens.

bcherny 5y ago
In what ways is this different than today’s world, where depending on what you want to do (connect with people with similar interests, talk to friends, look at cat videos) there’s a bunch of options for what service to use?
- bmarquez 5y ago
  Currently, I'd have to recreate my social graph if I move to a different service. With the proposed interoperability, I wouldn't have to.
  - jboy55 5y ago
    If you maintained the same social graph on each service, you'd still have all the misinformation being shared amongst the same graph members. Its one thing if the content being served is what some nefarious actor wants a group to consume, for influence sake. Its another when its the content produces and consumes themselves. The current misinformation discourse on FB is the current culture, especially the culture of a large group of people. It originates both on and off FB. 'Q' didn't originate on FB, it originated on 8chan, let that sink in.

ryandrake 5y ago

Facebook is not the public square. It’s not even a public square. It’s not a bulletin board or a newspaper or a telephone. There’s no analog analogy. It’s a site run by a private company that you send content to, they analyze it, then they decide what to publish and in what order. The closest analog thing I can think of is Letters To The Editor in a newspaper. They aren't “deciding who gets to talk” or “shutting down speech.” There are plenty of non-Facebook ways to talk that don’t involve sending your message to them and hoping they decide to post it.

chana_masala 5y ago
There doesn't need to be an analog analogy. There was nothing analogous about the telephone either but Bell Labs was still broken up
FormerBandmate 5y ago
They’re the modern public square, as are all social media platforms. You could have made the same argument about the telephone or ISPs, both of those are neutral for a reason
iammisc 5y ago
This is technically true but de facto not. It's like arguing that Ukraine controls Crimea because legally (according to themselves and others) they do. In my experience when this argument is made, I typically follow it up by "well if it's so unimportant, why don't you delete your account?". 99/100 times I've asked this in real life the person responds by saying, "well I don't have anywhere else to say things" (this is during covid). For the past two years, social media is the only public square allowed by government fiat. Thus it must be regulated as such.
- lelandfe 5y ago
  …so by the same logic, as COVID wanes and actual real-life public squares exist again, Facebook won’t need to be regulated?
  - 5y ago

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

If we choose to go with a real world analogy, the "public square", then why are people sharing messages and photos with friends and family via a "public square". That is not what we do in the real world.

sofixa 5y ago

Maybe you missed the genocide that happened thanks to a rampant disinformation campaign on Facebook? Or the other more benign cases, like antivaxers (the classical ones, not vaccinating their kids against polio and measles) and co. Can anyone seriously argue that disinformation on Facebook isn't dangerous? The only possible question should be what can we do about it to preserve debate, free speech, etc. while stoping the literally deadly parts.

gfodor 5y ago
We already have done this over the last several centuries by defining the line between legal and non-legal speech. The point is the line is chosen to trade off these risks. There is no silver bullet but acting like there is, and that this debate is just beginning now, is fallacious.

nerdponx 5y ago

> criticisms of Facebook now seem to entirely be focused on them not shutting down speech. Note to readers: the author of the blog post is not espousing this, at least not overtly.

smsm42 5y ago
Mentioning hate speech is a pretty good marker though, I'd give 80% probability the author thinks FB should censor more whoever the author considers haters.

gorgoiler 5y ago

Many alternatives to the Facebook Public Square exist: Discord, Diaspora, Mastodon, er... Ello, erm, Voat. I’m joking of course. None of those make as much money as Facebook, and I think we can all agree it’s the fact that they are so rich that bothers us most. Far more than any public square argument. Where’s my yacht?!

alexandre_m 5y ago
I don't care that they're rich. I care that they have a monopoly and consolidate so much power that they can shift the balance for the interest of their stakeholders or lobbyists.

epinephrinios 5y ago

What's going with the "western" world? Look at Australia, UK and now USA. Citizens are voluntarily giving up on hard-won rights like free speech in favor of what? A false sense of security? Saddens me deeply.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

bashinator 5y ago

IMO, Facebook (or YT, or any big media company) even being in a position to “shut down free speech” is a predictable outcome of the total failure of net neutrality in the U.S. If everyone had sufficient bandwidth to host their own content from their home Internet, and ISPs were prohibited from also being media companies, free speech would be much stronger.

smsm42 5y ago

Well, there's another option - they are allowed to arbiter, but aren't allowed to control the rules on the arbitration, at least not directly - instead, an overriding entity would do that. The entity would be, most likely, the government, but as a window dressing, an "independent body" whose members are selected by the politicians can be established to give it a veneer of being removed from everyday politics (protip: it never is). While not a lot of people would admit to preferring this model now, I suspect, a lot of them are pushing in the direction that can't lead anywhere but there. Of course, once such body is established, its natural evolution would be first to control all large public speech platforms, and then to attempt to control all speech in general.