4 ms·

Social media should be regulated like utilities. They are the "public square" now in all but name - they should be regulated the same way, with free speech ensh

Social media should be regulated like utilities. They are the "public square" now in all but name - they should be regulated the same way, with free speech enshrined in law just as in public spaces. Their defence is always "we are private companies so we do whatever they want" - which wouldn't fly if they were a water company refusing service arbitrarily.

jakelazaroff 3y ago
Yes, because you very literally need water to live. You won’t die if you go three days without posting on Twitter.
hooande 3y ago
I thought that regulation was based on the idea that it's difficult to start new, competing social networks. But the market seems to be taking care of that. Why regulate twitter if any miscellanous billionaire can start a competitive service? Regulation means that companies have to follow arbitrary rules, including rules that you may not like. Wait until every social site is legally required to ban you if you violate a given rule. The social networking space seems to be working itself out It's just a slow process.
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  Regulation as a utility could focus on data ex-changeability. Ie. the "utility" is a certain standard all social media need to support which allows users to interact with people on other platforms, and move their data and identity between them. This would reduce network effects by a lot, thereby increasing competition.
- ghusto 3y ago
  > I thought that regulation was based on the idea that it's difficult to start new, competing social networks. Tried it? Difficult is an understatement. As you point out though, "miscellaneous billionaire(s)" can try. That's hardly the same thing as the first days when Twitter started. > Regulation means that companies have to follow arbitrary rules, including rules that you may not like. I'm going to presume your use of the word arbitrary there is a result of a lack of faith in government. As little faith as _I_ have in government though, I wouldn't call regulations arbitrary. Anyway ... > Wait until every social site is legally required to ban you if you violate a given rule. Fine with me. There are plenty of laws I don't agree with, but follow because the rule of law is more important than getting laws right (aligned to my opinion). This is not least because we can do something about those laws we disagree with in a civil way. I'm fairly certain I'd get punished on these sites if the current social justice trends became law. That works well, because then we'd be able to go through an established public process to change them — rather than a private company deciding their own laws, with no recourse.
- doublespanner 3y ago
  It seems like the group of people who can start a competitive service is small enough, and homogeneous enough, that we risk a case where we can choose between the site where you can use the word "cis" and the site where you can use the word "retard", but can not find a platform where tracking the political activity of billionaires is OK.
- tenpies 3y ago
  > if any miscellanous billionaire can start a competitive service? Can they really? At least on Zuckerberg's side Threads' competitiveness would have been impossible without piggy backing on the back of Instagram. He was willing to possibly cannibalise an existing product in the Meta portfolio, to hopefully take away share from a competitor's product. I'm not sure how well that strategy works, and there will surely be organic growth, but will be talking about Threads in 2 years or will it be a Google Circles? I'm also sure they factored this in at Meta. Perhaps they determined that one Threads user will be more valuable than one IG user, so even if it were a 1:1 cannibalisation, it would be worth it. I'm really curious what the Threads roadmap looks like, because if they are truly going after Twitter, Musk has been fairly clear that Twitter is to be an everything app, a la WeChat.
api 3y ago
Not just anyone can start a water company. The capital investment is massive and it’s a natural monopoly unless you want five redundant networks of pipes. At this point a few competent programmers who knows web tech and can either use cloud or set up their own operations on cheap bare metal servers can start a social network. The bar only gets lower over time as it gets cheaper and easier to run large Internet services. The barrier is even lower if you include running your own simple web forum, board, or a fediverse node. Anyone who knows a little sysadmin and can afford a $20/month VPS can do that. I do agree that there should be regulations around net neutrality that prevent ISPs and backbone carriers from discriminating against any legal form of traffic since those are more like the water company, but the fact that everything is encrypted these days makes that kind of discrimination hard anyway.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Sure, the barrier isn’t infrastructure (like a water company) or technical skill, its network effects. You can build what would, with a critical mass of users, be a competitive social network, the hard part is getting users, which is why Threads (bootstrapping from IG) is so advantaged over other new alt-Twitter options.
  - api 3y ago
    The days of One Big Social Network are clearly coming to an end. We are in an unbundling and diversification phase in that space. As with most open systems, big social is succumbing to spam. In the case of social the primary form of spam is outrage porn and similar lizard brain engaging material. The bigger a social network is and the less moderated it is, the more this material dominates. If you try to moderate you drive people away toward niche networks. If you don’t try to moderate, all the toxic rage bait and trolling drives people away to niche networks. This is how big social dies. The future is niche networks with niche moderation policies, private boards and chat rooms, and the fediverse which is actually thousands of niche social networks in a trenchcoat.
micromacrofoot 3y ago
name one platform that follows “free speech” as required for the government that isn’t a complete trash heap of vulgarity and abuse
kstrauser 3y ago
That’s a terrible idea. Unmoderated communities inevitably drive off everyone but those doing the driving. Further reading: 4chan.
- calderknight 3y ago
  4chan is pretty heavily moderated. Anyway, I think you can have freedom of speech and moderation. I don't think it's a violation of freedom of speech to have certain areas dedicated to specific topics, in which off-topic posts get removed. As long as all speech has somewhere it can be posted (e.g. by allowing users to create their own sub-forums where they decide the rules for themselves).
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- Pannoniae 3y ago
  4chan is moderated, it's just that almost everything is allowed. There are some things you can't post there, though. And enforcement is quite strict.
  - dontupvoteme 3y ago
    Eh, the bans are trivial to get around unless you have a static IP, you have to really spam to get a rangeban or rangerestrict (e.g. can't make threads) and the common "moderator" is literally called a janitor and routinely mocked across all boards. Disdain for moderation is one of the core tenants of the site culture. For instance one of the (board specific) rules of /int/ is to respect other cultures and people but half the (non-general) threads are either blatant bait or arguing about how other people in country/region X cannot suffer.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bell-cot 3y ago
Not to say you’re entirely wrong … but regulated by which government(s), which have (ideally) previously demonstrated that they understand social media well enough to write net-positive regulations, then do a decent job of enforcing those?
- Pannoniae 3y ago
  Preferably the ones with the best and least restrictive free speech laws
root_axis 3y ago
Absurd. Social media platforms are banal entertainment sites, the idea that they need to be enshrined in our society as utilities makes absolutely no sense.
AmericanOP 3y ago
Demanding "Free speech" is just a lever for people on the fringe to bully for promotion via recommendation algorithms. It has nothing to do with values and everything to do with achieving objectives.
quantified 3y ago
Free speech is not enshrined in law the way you think it is. Try yelling how the Holocaust didn't happen in a German town square. It also has consequences. You are literally saying things to people's faces, they can see yours. So if you start spouting your protected "kill all n*** and kikes" speech, they can follow you back home. Social media is populated by bots, sock puppets and impersonators, very different.
- Pannoniae 3y ago
  Yeah and 1. "Kill all X" is almost nowhere protected legally as speech. That's calls for violence, which falls under either terrorism or hate speech laws. 2. "Following you home" is in best case harassment, worst case assault. Don't legitimise lynch mobs, please.
  - quantified 3y ago
    Elsewhere you state a preference for "least restrictive free speech laws". However, you do seem to suggest that there should be some limits? Hate speech laws are seen by some as an unnecessary intrusion on freedom of speech. Part of the town square is actually being accountable for what you say, which the on-line troll world avoids. How to align free speech with unaccountability?
    - Pannoniae 3y ago
      I think those people are nutjobs (who say threats of violence should be protected speech) Yes, there should be limits, but those should be way less restrictive than most modern social media (ban on anything controversial) Also, I think accountability shouldn't be confused with lynch mobs - calling people to be fired or deplatformed isn't "natural consequences/accountability", it's using harassment to hurt someone else.
vel0city 3y ago
There's only one group running water to my house. Is there really only one place online where I can speak?

jakelazaroff 3y ago

Yes, because you very literally need water to live. You won’t die if you go three days without posting on Twitter.

hooande 3y ago

I thought that regulation was based on the idea that it's difficult to start new, competing social networks. But the market seems to be taking care of that. Why regulate twitter if any miscellanous billionaire can start a competitive service? Regulation means that companies have to follow arbitrary rules, including rules that you may not like. Wait until every social site is legally required to ban you if you violate a given rule. The social networking space seems to be working itself out It's just a slow process.

_Algernon_ 3y ago
Regulation as a utility could focus on data ex-changeability. Ie. the "utility" is a certain standard all social media need to support which allows users to interact with people on other platforms, and move their data and identity between them. This would reduce network effects by a lot, thereby increasing competition.
ghusto 3y ago
> I thought that regulation was based on the idea that it's difficult to start new, competing social networks. Tried it? Difficult is an understatement. As you point out though, "miscellaneous billionaire(s)" can try. That's hardly the same thing as the first days when Twitter started. > Regulation means that companies have to follow arbitrary rules, including rules that you may not like. I'm going to presume your use of the word arbitrary there is a result of a lack of faith in government. As little faith as _I_ have in government though, I wouldn't call regulations arbitrary. Anyway ... > Wait until every social site is legally required to ban you if you violate a given rule. Fine with me. There are plenty of laws I don't agree with, but follow because the rule of law is more important than getting laws right (aligned to my opinion). This is not least because we can do something about those laws we disagree with in a civil way. I'm fairly certain I'd get punished on these sites if the current social justice trends became law. That works well, because then we'd be able to go through an established public process to change them — rather than a private company deciding their own laws, with no recourse.
doublespanner 3y ago
It seems like the group of people who can start a competitive service is small enough, and homogeneous enough, that we risk a case where we can choose between the site where you can use the word "cis" and the site where you can use the word "retard", but can not find a platform where tracking the political activity of billionaires is OK.
tenpies 3y ago
> if any miscellanous billionaire can start a competitive service? Can they really? At least on Zuckerberg's side Threads' competitiveness would have been impossible without piggy backing on the back of Instagram. He was willing to possibly cannibalise an existing product in the Meta portfolio, to hopefully take away share from a competitor's product. I'm not sure how well that strategy works, and there will surely be organic growth, but will be talking about Threads in 2 years or will it be a Google Circles? I'm also sure they factored this in at Meta. Perhaps they determined that one Threads user will be more valuable than one IG user, so even if it were a 1:1 cannibalisation, it would be worth it. I'm really curious what the Threads roadmap looks like, because if they are truly going after Twitter, Musk has been fairly clear that Twitter is to be an everything app, a la WeChat.

api 3y ago

Not just anyone can start a water company. The capital investment is massive and it’s a natural monopoly unless you want five redundant networks of pipes. At this point a few competent programmers who knows web tech and can either use cloud or set up their own operations on cheap bare metal servers can start a social network. The bar only gets lower over time as it gets cheaper and easier to run large Internet services. The barrier is even lower if you include running your own simple web forum, board, or a fediverse node. Anyone who knows a little sysadmin and can afford a $20/month VPS can do that. I do agree that there should be regulations around net neutrality that prevent ISPs and backbone carriers from discriminating against any legal form of traffic since those are more like the water company, but the fact that everything is encrypted these days makes that kind of discrimination hard anyway.

dragonwriter 3y ago
Sure, the barrier isn’t infrastructure (like a water company) or technical skill, its network effects. You can build what would, with a critical mass of users, be a competitive social network, the hard part is getting users, which is why Threads (bootstrapping from IG) is so advantaged over other new alt-Twitter options.
- api 3y ago
  The days of One Big Social Network are clearly coming to an end. We are in an unbundling and diversification phase in that space. As with most open systems, big social is succumbing to spam. In the case of social the primary form of spam is outrage porn and similar lizard brain engaging material. The bigger a social network is and the less moderated it is, the more this material dominates. If you try to moderate you drive people away toward niche networks. If you don’t try to moderate, all the toxic rage bait and trolling drives people away to niche networks. This is how big social dies. The future is niche networks with niche moderation policies, private boards and chat rooms, and the fediverse which is actually thousands of niche social networks in a trenchcoat.

micromacrofoot 3y ago

name one platform that follows “free speech” as required for the government that isn’t a complete trash heap of vulgarity and abuse

kstrauser 3y ago

That’s a terrible idea. Unmoderated communities inevitably drive off everyone but those doing the driving. Further reading: 4chan.

calderknight 3y ago
4chan is pretty heavily moderated. Anyway, I think you can have freedom of speech and moderation. I don't think it's a violation of freedom of speech to have certain areas dedicated to specific topics, in which off-topic posts get removed. As long as all speech has somewhere it can be posted (e.g. by allowing users to create their own sub-forums where they decide the rules for themselves).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Pannoniae 3y ago
4chan is moderated, it's just that almost everything is allowed. There are some things you can't post there, though. And enforcement is quite strict.
- dontupvoteme 3y ago
  Eh, the bans are trivial to get around unless you have a static IP, you have to really spam to get a rangeban or rangerestrict (e.g. can't make threads) and the common "moderator" is literally called a janitor and routinely mocked across all boards. Disdain for moderation is one of the core tenants of the site culture. For instance one of the (board specific) rules of /int/ is to respect other cultures and people but half the (non-general) threads are either blatant bait or arguing about how other people in country/region X cannot suffer.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bell-cot 3y ago

Not to say you’re entirely wrong … but regulated by which government(s), which have (ideally) previously demonstrated that they understand social media well enough to write net-positive regulations, then do a decent job of enforcing those?

Pannoniae 3y ago
Preferably the ones with the best and least restrictive free speech laws

root_axis 3y ago

Absurd. Social media platforms are banal entertainment sites, the idea that they need to be enshrined in our society as utilities makes absolutely no sense.

AmericanOP 3y ago

Demanding "Free speech" is just a lever for people on the fringe to bully for promotion via recommendation algorithms. It has nothing to do with values and everything to do with achieving objectives.

quantified 3y ago

Free speech is not enshrined in law the way you think it is. Try yelling how the Holocaust didn't happen in a German town square. It also has consequences. You are literally saying things to people's faces, they can see yours. So if you start spouting your protected "kill all n*** and kikes" speech, they can follow you back home. Social media is populated by bots, sock puppets and impersonators, very different.

Pannoniae 3y ago
Yeah and 1. "Kill all X" is almost nowhere protected legally as speech. That's calls for violence, which falls under either terrorism or hate speech laws. 2. "Following you home" is in best case harassment, worst case assault. Don't legitimise lynch mobs, please.
- quantified 3y ago
  Elsewhere you state a preference for "least restrictive free speech laws". However, you do seem to suggest that there should be some limits? Hate speech laws are seen by some as an unnecessary intrusion on freedom of speech. Part of the town square is actually being accountable for what you say, which the on-line troll world avoids. How to align free speech with unaccountability?
  - Pannoniae 3y ago
    I think those people are nutjobs (who say threats of violence should be protected speech) Yes, there should be limits, but those should be way less restrictive than most modern social media (ban on anything controversial) Also, I think accountability shouldn't be confused with lynch mobs - calling people to be fired or deplatformed isn't "natural consequences/accountability", it's using harassment to hurt someone else.

vel0city 3y ago

There's only one group running water to my house. Is there really only one place online where I can speak?