4 ms·
ISPs are private businesses too. Would you be fine with ISPs regulating speech?
by mysecretaccount 4y ago
ISPs are private businesses too. Would you be fine with ISPs regulating speech?
- Cd00d 4y agoI'd delay that discussion until a time when ISPs don't tend to be regional monopolies.
- mysecretaccount 4y agoYes, this is my point. You could make a similar argument about the social media oligopolies.
- tmp_anon_22 4y agoWith ISPs I think of the precedent of TV and Radio being censored from their inception, pirate broadcasting non-withstanding. Are we going to say free speech was lost in 1920 when you couldn't say ** on the radio?
- lisper 4y agoISPs are utilities. There is only one internet, just as there is only one power grid, only one road network, only one water distribution network. But there are many social media platforms, and it's easy to start new ones. That is the reason that private censorship on social media platforms is acceptable but censorship by ISPs is not.
- mysecretaccount 4y ago> But there are many social media platforms, and it's easy to start new ones. There is one Twitter. Losing access to Twitter, YouTube, etc. looks like losing access to a utility to me. And it is not easy to start a new Twitter or YouTube in any meaningful sense. One could just as easily say "ISPs are not utilities or monopolies, you can start your own intranet easily with OSS!"
- unethical_ban 4y agoI fundamentally disagree with the assertion that Twitter is irreplaceable in the same way an ISP is. Twitter is not the Internet.
- mysecretaccount 4y agoAlthough you are likely highly overrating how irreplaceable ISPs are (the situation is bad but I have switched between several in this one home over the years), that's fine. I'm saying that Twitter being a private business does not mean that it should be shielded from any criticism of its speech practices for the same way that ISPs are not similarly exempt.
- unethical_ban 4y agoStarting a blog is a lot easier than starting an ISP. I am ignoring the network effects because my metric is reachability and freedom of expression, not the power of the social network.
- mysecretaccount 4y agoIf your metric is reachability, it seems like a mistake to ignore network effects. Although you raise a good point: reachability can be mostly extinguished by access to both ISPs and the handful of large social networks.
- juve1996 4y agoI disagree. There are plenty of outlets, multiple TV channels, multiple social networks, newspapers, websites, etc, for Trump to get his message across. > And it is not easy to start a new Twitter or YouTube in any meaningful sense. Apparently it is - Trump started his very own, just like that. didn't even take that long.
- mysecretaccount 4y agoMy argument has nothing to do with Trump. A massively visible public figure is obviously an outlier when we talk about "limiting speech".