3 ms·

It’s hilarious to look back at old threads on the orange site where people made wild claims, like calling Twitter a “public utility” without much thought. But h

by riffic 1y ago

It’s hilarious to look back at old threads on the orange site where people made wild claims, like calling Twitter a “public utility” without much thought. But honestly, I always saw the company as vulnerable to these issues. That’s why Masnick’s article “Protocols not Platforms” is still so spot-on. https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a-technological-approach-to-free-speech https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a...

sorcerer-mar 1y ago
Pretty sure people calling it a public utility was always an aspirational claim and not an earnest belief that it had a governance structure that made it immune to such an attack…
- riffic 1y ago
  poorly thought out aspirations then. Many of the communication outlets through this utility have as well their own web infrastructure, hopefully serving as a single source of truth, whether that looks like wsj.com or whitehouse.gov. Interestingly enough the W3C has a recommendation to publish activities through an interoperable manner. There's even talk of putting the Bluesky protocol through whatever process the IETF uses to create a request for comments.
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    It’s “poorly thought out” to want there to exist truly public infrastructure that’s of the rough shape of Twitter? I personally would love not having every viable tool of propaganda owned by private interests totally free of any Constitutional obligations. A public utility Twitter would surely be inferior in many ways, but IMO would be a useful counterbalance to have in the mix of platform options. Your comment makes sense if the social value of Twitter was exclusively posting links from other actual sources of truth, but it’s not. That’s not even the primary source of social value in a free society (it’s the dialogue).
- woooooo 1y ago
  Also, have the key "public utility" factors changed? Do politicians and journalists still get their news/engagement there? Honestly asking. For me, a former "public utility" poster, it seemed like the public square for elite opinion and that was what made it a utility. I don't think anyone was saying we need public utility microblogging in general.
- ty6853 1y ago
  I think it's in reference to pre-internet 1A 'protection' even when using publicly available private property. >See Marsh v. Alabama for this -- a company town was prohibited from barring picketing and pamphleting on private sidewalks. [user?id=rabite] >https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/326us501 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/326us501
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    Ah, good point. Very possible!

by riffic 1y ago

sorcerer-mar 1y ago

Pretty sure people calling it a public utility was always an aspirational claim and not an earnest belief that it had a governance structure that made it immune to such an attack…

riffic 1y ago
poorly thought out aspirations then. Many of the communication outlets through this utility have as well their own web infrastructure, hopefully serving as a single source of truth, whether that looks like wsj.com or whitehouse.gov. Interestingly enough the W3C has a recommendation to publish activities through an interoperable manner. There's even talk of putting the Bluesky protocol through whatever process the IETF uses to create a request for comments.
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago
  It’s “poorly thought out” to want there to exist truly public infrastructure that’s of the rough shape of Twitter? I personally would love not having every viable tool of propaganda owned by private interests totally free of any Constitutional obligations. A public utility Twitter would surely be inferior in many ways, but IMO would be a useful counterbalance to have in the mix of platform options. Your comment makes sense if the social value of Twitter was exclusively posting links from other actual sources of truth, but it’s not. That’s not even the primary source of social value in a free society (it’s the dialogue).
woooooo 1y ago
Also, have the key "public utility" factors changed? Do politicians and journalists still get their news/engagement there? Honestly asking. For me, a former "public utility" poster, it seemed like the public square for elite opinion and that was what made it a utility. I don't think anyone was saying we need public utility microblogging in general.
ty6853 1y ago
I think it's in reference to pre-internet 1A 'protection' even when using publicly available private property. >See Marsh v. Alabama for this -- a company town was prohibited from barring picketing and pamphleting on private sidewalks. [user?id=rabite] >https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/326us501 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/326us501
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago
  Ah, good point. Very possible!