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> Strongly disagree on this one. Utilities and heavy regulation are a necessary evil that should be used sparingly, not as the norm. I mean it seems like socia
by disgruntledphd2 1y ago
> Strongly disagree on this one. Utilities and heavy regulation are a necessary evil that should be used sparingly, not as the norm.
I mean it seems like social networks (and potentially search, but I'm less certain here) seem like a natural monopoly, so it would make sense to turn them into utilities.
- _heimdall 1y agoI wouldn't reach for making an industry a utility just because it became a monopoly. It should probably be considered a public good as well, I'm not sure social media would fit that. I'd look to why it became a monopoly. I'm not sold on social media being a monopoly given the number of services out there, but either way they only got so large because they were effectively given get out of jail free cards with regards to legal liability protections given to the by the government. Removing those rather than standing up all the plumbing needed to regulate them as utilities seems like a much more simply approach.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago> were effectively given get out of jail free cards with regards to legal liability protections given to the by the government You mean Section 230 and other analogous laws, right? I'm not sure how you have comment and interaction heavy sites (like HN) without some sort of protections here. Like, YC would probably shut HN down rather than pay for enough people to moderate it 24-7. Certainly, Facebook and Youtube would require absolute armies of moderators to comply with the law if they were treated as the publisher of user-generated content. Maybe that's a tradeoff you'd be willing to make, but I'm pretty sure such a policy would be wildly unpopular and likely to get reversed pretty soon.