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Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

www2.law.ucla.edu

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Re: Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

#31

Post by chrisco255 »

hpoe wrote: post #23
klyrs wrote: post #22

My biggest technical issue with this "common carrier" movement is spam. The author mentions it, but seems to suggest that users can simply block or ignore spammers. As somebody who witnessed the commercialization of the internet, I find this extremely naive. We generally think of email as a "common carrier," but even there, spam is blocked. Blocking spam is censorship. Failure to automatically detect 1% of spam will…

I guess part of my question with spam lately is why can't we just go after the spammers? It seems to me that acting as a public nuisance would be enough for the government to take action.

Because most of the spam is coming from other countries and the cost of tracking down every spammer is prohibitive.

Re: Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

#32

Post by Server6 »

throwawaysea wrote: post #29

Social media above a certain size should be treated as common carriers. There are no reasonable alternatives to them, and today, common public activities activities that are core to our life are conducted on these large platforms. This is not a matter of protecting the freedom of companies to do as they wish - we already regulate companies and restrict their activities in many ways. Private power utilities cannot dis…

Here's the thing, you don't NEED social media. It's not a utility. Your quality of life won't diminish if you don't have access to it. I suggest deleting it and not using it for a few months and see how you feel. I 100% guarantee your mental health will improve.

Re: Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

#33

Post by throwawaysea »

Animats wrote: post #14

This can be viewed as an alternative under antitrust law. If you get big enough, either you get broken up, or you have to become a regulated monopoly. You get to pick. "Big enough" by EU standards is where there are less than four competitors of reasonable size and reach. The US tends to tolerate a higher threshold. Amy Klobuchar's "Antitrust" book suggests 40% market share as the threshold.

> If you get big enough, either you get broken up, or you have to become a regulated monopoly.

Some products cannot be easily broken up without disrupting the actual product. For instance, Facebook could not be broken up since the value of the product is in large part due to having one significantly sized and unified user base (network effects). But these companies can't have it both ways - they can't claim that they operate in a competitive environment with few barriers for new competition while also claiming that splitting up their user base would destroy their unique product offering.

We also need to be wary of market share arguments, especially given that these companies largely operate in the Bay Area and reflects its values/political culture/etc. This is why we regularly see them enact censorship in lock-step. Even if several companies operate with less-than-majority market share, they can behave as a cartel. That's why we shouldn't treat Twitter and Facebook and Tik Tok as alternatives to each other.

A better alternative might be to simply envision and implement new regulations based on minimum user bases. If your user base is larger than X (to be defined) then you are subject to regulations. Some suggestions could be user bases larger than the [smallest or largest] state by population. A social media platform that has more influence and power than a state government seems like a reasonable target for regulation.

Re: Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

#35

Post by throwawaysea »

Server6 wrote: post #32
throwawaysea wrote: post #29

Social media above a certain size should be treated as common carriers. There are no reasonable alternatives to them, and today, common public activities activities that are core to our life are conducted on these large platforms. This is not a matter of protecting the freedom of companies to do as they wish - we already regulate companies and restrict their activities in many ways. Private power utilities cannot dis…

Here's the thing, you don't NEED social media. It's not a utility. Your quality of life won't diminish if you don't have access to it. I suggest deleting it and not using it for a few months and see how you feel. I 100% guarantee your mental health will improve.

I understand where you're coming from, and I probably would agree that mental health would improve. But the reality is that the majority of political discourse today happens online on these digital platforms. It is only going to get more digital as Gen-Z comes of age. So while my immediate short-term mental health might improve, I also feel that not being present on social media means that I would be participating less in our democratic process, my views would be less represented, and in the long-term my quality of life may change in a negative way as a result. It's also why I think the ban of Donald Trump is unacceptable - for all practical intents and purposes, these social media platforms now gatekeep the most fundamental (political) processes underlying society.

Re: Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

#36

Post by rcpt »

Buttons840 wrote: post #18

If social media becomes a common carrier, but ISPs do not, can Facebook just host their service on their own ISP and block unwanted users at the ISP level? "It's not Facebook blocking the user, it's the ISP, which happens to be the only ISP we host Facebook on." All just poking holes in the idea that social media can be a common carrier while the ISPs are not. Somehow the literal carrier avoided becoming the common c…

> just host their service on their own ISP

Good luck

Re: Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

#37

Post by uniqueuid »

klyrs wrote: post #22

My biggest technical issue with this "common carrier" movement is spam. The author mentions it, but seems to suggest that users can simply block or ignore spammers. As somebody who witnessed the commercialization of the internet, I find this extremely naive. We generally think of email as a "common carrier," but even there, spam is blocked. Blocking spam is censorship. Failure to automatically detect 1% of spam will…

Well, the common carrier approach would not necessarily mean that every user can publish what they want.

Common carrier treatment arises when you control a unique piece of infrastructure, or, more loosely defined, a dominant one. As a result you need to provide non-discriminating access for competitors.

In my interpretation, this requirement would also be satisfied by Facebook allowing publishers and companies to create pages. A minimal threshold of importance that's equal for all page owners might be valid.

And the paper touches on this, mentioning that there's a valid role in moderating comments:

> There might thus be reason to leave platforms free to moderate comments (rather than just authorizing users to do that for their own pages), even if one wants to stop platforms from deleting authors’ pages or authors’ posts from their pages

Re: Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

#38

Post by temp8964 »

klyrs wrote: post #22

My biggest technical issue with this "common carrier" movement is spam. The author mentions it, but seems to suggest that users can simply block or ignore spammers. As somebody who witnessed the commercialization of the internet, I find this extremely naive. We generally think of email as a "common carrier," but even there, spam is blocked. Blocking spam is censorship. Failure to automatically detect 1% of spam will…

I don't think this is a major issue at all. All the common carriers (phone line, cell phone, public square in shopping mall, etc.) designated by law have (or can have) spam problems. This does not change a thing. No serious common carrier will challenge the court with the argument: I can ban spammers so I can ban everyone I want to.

Re: Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

#39

Post by amadeuspagel »

klyrs wrote: post #22

My biggest technical issue with this "common carrier" movement is spam. The author mentions it, but seems to suggest that users can simply block or ignore spammers. As somebody who witnessed the commercialization of the internet, I find this extremely naive. We generally think of email as a "common carrier," but even there, spam is blocked. Blocking spam is censorship. Failure to automatically detect 1% of spam will…

Phone companies are regulated as common carriers, but there's an exception allowing them "to block by default illegal or unwanted calls based on reasonable call analytics before the calls reach consumers."[1]

[1]: https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/stop-unwanted-robocalls...

Re: Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf]

#40

Post by slg »

klyrs wrote: post #22

My biggest technical issue with this "common carrier" movement is spam. The author mentions it, but seems to suggest that users can simply block or ignore spammers. As somebody who witnessed the commercialization of the internet, I find this extremely naive. We generally think of email as a "common carrier," but even there, spam is blocked. Blocking spam is censorship. Failure to automatically detect 1% of spam will…

I think the biggest problem is less spam and more harassment. Simply blocking harassers isn't as effective as blocking spam due to the way social networks generally work. The harasser can just move on to your connections which is potentially even worse than them harassing you. Imagine an ex-partner sending revenge poor to all your contacts. Fighting that requires the ability for users to report potential bad actors and for the platform to have a centralized moderation mechanic to stop those bad actors.
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