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Why isn't Twitter or Facebook or Gmail a common carrier? They only provide the "means of communication". The "content of communication" is created by the users.

Why isn't Twitter or Facebook or Gmail a common carrier? They only provide the "means of communication". The "content of communication" is created by the users. Many internet companies seem to want to have it both ways. If someone tweets a bomb threat, Twitter will claim it is only the means for communication. If an ISP throttles Twitter's bandwidth, it will claim the ISP is the means and Twitter is the content. My point is just that the content vs means comparison is a very gray area in the age of the internet.

macspoofing 12y ago
You're being facetious because you're not that dense that you can't see a difference between a web application and a fiber connection, even if you don't support telecom reclassification. >My point is just that the content vs means comparison is a very gray area in the age of the internet. Yes, there are gray areas everywhere, but sometimes it's not that complicated. This one isn't complicated. In the set of complicated and ambiguous issues, this one is very well defined.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Its not that crazy. Google and Facebook depend on common carrier type protections to insulate them from, say, liability for the people who send child porn through their service.
- crazy1van 12y ago
  > You're being facetious because you're not that dense that you can't see a difference between a web application and a fiber connection Of course they are different in many ways. But they do have commonalities too. Its clear that fiber provides a means of communication. But I think if you asked the average person or lawmaker if Gmail provides a means of communication, they would also say yes. Is that even an unreasonable conclusion?
  - esbranson 12y ago
    Yes, when you consider that its not "common carriers" such as FedEx which is being discussed, but "telecommunications common carriers", which inevitably relies on the definition of telecommunications. Which Wikipedia makes pretty clear is commonly understood to mean a physical medium based upon electrical signals or electromagnetic waves.
nitrogen 12y ago
My point is just that the content vs means comparison is a very gray area in the age of the internet. So we should stop analogizing to the antiquated vocabulary of the telecommunications era and start from scratch with ideas that actually make sense in the context of the Internet.
- crazy1van 12y ago
  That's an uphill battle in a system of laws that still regularly refers to "wiretaps" and "pen registers".
esbranson 12y ago
Because they aren't telecommunications common carriers. Telecommunication, AFAIK, is commonly meant to refer to, as Wikipedia puts it, communications "through electrical signals or electromagnetic waves". Using a transitive argument to call the named services as such rests on the argument at hand about differentiation between content and medium.

macspoofing 12y ago

You're being facetious because you're not that dense that you can't see a difference between a web application and a fiber connection, even if you don't support telecom reclassification. >My point is just that the content vs means comparison is a very gray area in the age of the internet. Yes, there are gray areas everywhere, but sometimes it's not that complicated. This one isn't complicated. In the set of complicated and ambiguous issues, this one is very well defined.

rayiner 12y ago
Its not that crazy. Google and Facebook depend on common carrier type protections to insulate them from, say, liability for the people who send child porn through their service.
crazy1van 12y ago
> You're being facetious because you're not that dense that you can't see a difference between a web application and a fiber connection Of course they are different in many ways. But they do have commonalities too. Its clear that fiber provides a means of communication. But I think if you asked the average person or lawmaker if Gmail provides a means of communication, they would also say yes. Is that even an unreasonable conclusion?
- esbranson 12y ago
  Yes, when you consider that its not "common carriers" such as FedEx which is being discussed, but "telecommunications common carriers", which inevitably relies on the definition of telecommunications. Which Wikipedia makes pretty clear is commonly understood to mean a physical medium based upon electrical signals or electromagnetic waves.

nitrogen 12y ago

My point is just that the content vs means comparison is a very gray area in the age of the internet. So we should stop analogizing to the antiquated vocabulary of the telecommunications era and start from scratch with ideas that actually make sense in the context of the Internet.

crazy1van 12y ago
That's an uphill battle in a system of laws that still regularly refers to "wiretaps" and "pen registers".

esbranson 12y ago

Because they aren't telecommunications common carriers. Telecommunication, AFAIK, is commonly meant to refer to, as Wikipedia puts it, communications "through electrical signals or electromagnetic waves". Using a transitive argument to call the named services as such rests on the argument at hand about differentiation between content and medium.