Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers? [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by uniqueuid » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #56

uniqueuid wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what the common failing is? To underestimate how technical changes affect real-life usage? I often see the opposite fallacy: That tech people assume technically optimal solutions to be socially and legally optimal, which they often are not. To transfer this to your example: Perhaps the social and economic landscape of society would be better off if the spectrum belonged to us all. Maybe we would hav…

Assuming some existing technical solution is optimal. Hubs existed for a time because they were cheap, not because they were good. Or assuming that some solution to an unsolved problem will be pulled out of the magical innovation hat. We'll just devise more efficient time sharing algorithms.

Thanks, the first fallacy is great, I had not thought of this before. It's similar to how people will not deem change possible until it has always existed (i.e. when convinced, they overwrite the memory of their own past opinion).

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

#62

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by bosswipe » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 8:28 PM UTC

So many supposedly principled free-market libertarians and conservatives tying themselves in knots so that Trump can continue to push his lies. The american conservative movement, like nationalists everywhere, have no principles bedsides power. And with the new permanent conservative judiciary there are many victories in their future. Our democracy is in peril but if you look at places like Russia and China they seem stable enough, maybe the death of the American world order won't be so bad.

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

#64

Post by joe_the_user » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 8:28 PM UTC

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.

I'm in favor of regulated monopolies under some circumstances but making Facebook or any information-filter-platform into regulated monopoly sounds nightmarish. I'd sort of trust the US government, at its best, to do some things. But I would never trust any state regulate content filtering.

Beyond that, making sure it's always possible to host content on the Internet would be the most reasonable way guarantee free speech. And content filters would have competition this way as a content filter is a kind of content.

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

#65

Post by wmf » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 8:29 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #55

Majromax wrote: post #44

To me, the question is how a common carrier status can coexist with content curation and promotion. Looking at the ur-example of the phone company, AT&T doesn't try to preemptively place calls that a household "might be interested in based on analytics." The modern social media landscape, however, is dominated by "the algorithm." Youtube lives on its recommendations; Twitter wants you to keep refreshing its feed; eve…

If Twitter hides Trump from everyone doesn't follow him, but shows all his messages to everyone follows him. What is the problem then?

The problem from Trump's perspective is that he was getting a ton of engagement from non-followers and he wants that level of engagement back.

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

#66

Post by supertrope » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

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…

Social media companies only invest enough in trial ISP networks to encourage faster speed by incumbents. Telecoms outsource physical operations and desperately want to get into value adds like media content, low quality app stores, e-security, and advertising. No one wants to move down the OSI layers into commodity services or capital intensive slogs.

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

#67

Post by timoth3y » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

Be careful what you wish for.

If social media platforms are considered common carriers they will have a 'duty to serve." They will need to provide their service to anyone not judged by a court to be breaking the law.

That includes spam, pornography, and many forms of online abuse and harassment. There is a strong case to be made that ISPs should be common carriers, since they don't (and should not) know what is contained in the packets they transport.

But treating Twitter or Facebook or Hacker News as common carriers makes no sense. They are not "carriers" who are neutrally transmitting data they have no control over.

That's not what they want to be, and that's not want their users want them to be. 4chan has it's place, but most people don't want to whole web to look like that.

== Edit: Keep in mind the the law is a blunt interment. Claiming small social media sites don't need to worry about laws restricting big social media sites, is like claiming that honest citizens don't need to worry about laws targeting terrorists.

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

#68

Post by dane-pgp » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

slownews45 wrote: post #53

throwawaysea wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 le…

The contribution of social media to our "democratic process" is to poison it. Too many twitter warriors banging away on keyboards. You AND SOCIETY will benefit if you check out of it and just meet your neighbors.

> You AND SOCIETY will benefit if you check out of it and just meet your neighbors.

Not if your neighbors are staying at home consuming corporate/government approved social media messages.

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

#69

Post by thaumasiotes » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

chr1 wrote: post #25

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…

User has control over what is marked as spam, and can see spam messages if needed. If you block some content the way gmail blocks spam, it won't be censorship.

> If you block some content the way gmail blocks spam, it won't be censorship.

Are you thinking of the spam folder? Because the primary way that gmail blocks "spam" is by never delivering the email at all. Not to your spam folder, not anywhere.

I learned about this when I was unable to receive email from a personal friend.

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

#70

Post by shadilay » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:07 AM UTC

slownews45 wrote: post #52

Majromax wrote: post #44

To me, the question is how a common carrier status can coexist with content curation and promotion. Looking at the ur-example of the phone company, AT&T doesn't try to preemptively place calls that a household "might be interested in based on analytics." The modern social media landscape, however, is dominated by "the algorithm." Youtube lives on its recommendations; Twitter wants you to keep refreshing its feed; eve…

I think you will be surprised at how DISENGAGED folks are vis a vis a phone call on their AT&T line. Why? Because a damn ton of them are spam / scams. So yes, ATT doesn't filter calls, and users have learned not to answer them.

The phone system is a failure of innovation. Some kind of caller id should be mandatory. There is no technical reason something akin to DNS for phone numbers can't exist. Phone companies would rather cash checks than innovate.