Justice Thomas Argues For Making Facebook, Twitter and Google Utilities (protocol.com) 236
Last fall, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that it was time to rein in Section 230 immunity. Now, Justice Thomas is laying out an argument for why companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google should be regulated as utilities. From a report: On Monday, the Supreme Court vacated a lower court ruling in finding that President Trump had acted unconstitutionally by blocking people on Twitter. That case, which the justices deemed moot, hinged on the idea that the @realdonaldtrump account was a public forum run by the President of the United States, and therefore, was constitutionally prohibited from stifling private speech. In his concurrence, Justice Thomas agrees with the decision, but argues that, in fact, Twitter's recent ban of the @realdonaldtrump account suggests that it's platforms themselves, not the government officials on them, that hold all the power. "As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms," Thomas writes. "The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions."
Thomas argues that some digital platforms are "sufficiently akin" to common carriers like telephone companies. "A traditional telephone company laid physical wires to create a network connecting people," Thomas writes. "Digital platforms lay information infrastructure that can be controlled in much the same way." Thomas argues that while private companies aren't subject to the First Amendment, common carriers are unique to other private businesses in that they do not have the "right to exclude." Thomas suggests that large tech platforms with substantial market power should be bound by the same restrictions. "If the analogy between common carriers and digital platforms is correct, then an answer may arise for dissatisfied platform users who would appreciate not being blocked: laws that restrict the platform's right to exclude," Thomas writes.
Thomas argues that some digital platforms are "sufficiently akin" to common carriers like telephone companies. "A traditional telephone company laid physical wires to create a network connecting people," Thomas writes. "Digital platforms lay information infrastructure that can be controlled in much the same way." Thomas argues that while private companies aren't subject to the First Amendment, common carriers are unique to other private businesses in that they do not have the "right to exclude." Thomas suggests that large tech platforms with substantial market power should be bound by the same restrictions. "If the analogy between common carriers and digital platforms is correct, then an answer may arise for dissatisfied platform users who would appreciate not being blocked: laws that restrict the platform's right to exclude," Thomas writes.
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
So web sites can be utilities but Internet access to reach them is not? What the actual fuck?
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did Thomas argue that ISPs were not utilities? His argument obviously implies that they should also be considered utilities.
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No the FCC already decided. And Thomas can't change that directly.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
No the FCC already decided. And Thomas can't change that directly.
He can't change the status of the websites either. He is not saying what will be done, but what, in his opinion, should be done.
His opinion is just 1 of 9, isn't shared by the other justices, and is not based on any solid legal argument or subject-matter expertise.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who do you believe has more subject-matter expertise on the laws and constitution of the United States of America than Clarence Thomas, and particularly on their effects on classes historically on the receiving end of discrimination? I'm pretty sure that would be an extraordinarily short list.
He doesn't need expertise in the technical implementation of the platform; his argument is based entirely around the observable effects of the platform and its impact on free speech. It's a balance of power type question: when a company gets so large and ubiquitous that it is one of the primary communications mediums, does it have the right to limit who can use it? In the case of regulated utilities like telcos, the answer is no. He compares the power of communications platforms like twitter/fb to more classic platforms like telcos, and simply says "the impact of being excluded from service X is similar to that of being excluded from regulated utility Y. Therefore, service X should be treated as a utility."
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What you and Thomas are missing is how fleeting dominance in tech is.
For example: Facebook, granted, has had a surprising amount of staying power. But there is nothing essential or necessary about a social network, and their #1 position can evaporate in short order. Remember MySpace? Before Facebook, we were all on MySpace, using it for exactly all of the things we use Facebook for now. And, at its peak, MySpace got more web traffic than even Google. Then one day, whoever the arbiters of what is cool
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It actually is based on a solid legal argument. The solid legal argument is that a Supreme Court justice said it. That makes it a solid legal argument.
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FCC already decided.
FCC is not the final arbiter of the statutes that determines what laws apply to ISPs. The Supreme court has the power to nullify a FCC decision by finding it inconsistent with the law or the constitution - For example, the Supreme court could rule that ISPs are common carriers.
The Supreme Court may be reluctant to and generally the expectation is instead the Congress may have to pass laws to effect a change. Anyway, In order to do so, the Supreme Court technically only need a case br
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
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things like AWS, GPC, facebook, need limited censo (Score:2)
things like AWS, GPC, Facebook, need rules that limit censorship?
Can the power company do censorship and cut off your data center if they don't like the legal stuff you are doing?
Can they cut off your legal pot farm? As the power company owner does not like POT?
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Can the power company do censorship and cut off your data center if they don't like the legal stuff you are doing?
This is a question whose answer is complicated and will depend on local franchise laws.
It is quite possible the power company may be able to refuse service to your Data Center or refuse service to a customer in excess of what is essential for their personal needs. The power company can limit how much electricity they are willing to sell to you, or the maximum loading they will agree to, an
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thomas didn't argue that at all.
On the other hand, the significance of Thomas's statements here is unclear. He seems to be weighing in on a *policy* issue, not a legal question. In other words he's not saying that social media is regulated under such-and-such a law, he seems to be inviting the other branches of government to do something about them.
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Thomas says the court needs neutrality but yet he holds his views in public.
https://apnews.com/article/951... [apnews.com]
Thomas helped kill net neutrality but now says he'd revisit that.
https://www.engadget.com/2020-... [engadget.com]
He seems awfully mixed up to me.
How the hell is this insightful? (Score:4, Insightful)
The decision to declare utilities is a political one.
Thomas was just opining that the most effective fix here would be to make these platforms into utilities.
Knowing Thomas's politics, he'd probably agree with you that if states and localities are going to put such onerous restrictions on new entrants that market forces are neutered, then by God they can force existing players to continually expand and provide services to everyone.
No more political than regulating phone company (Score:3)
The decision to declare utilities is a political one.
Yes. However the argument to regulate widely used communications tools also have a very strong practical element and a fairness element as well. Its really not that different from regulating the phone company. It really about a tool becoming ubiquitous and attaining a certain level of necessity, analog v digital in nature not really meaningful.
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Do we require national newspapers and television stations to carry political messages? Do we treat news like a utility now? Why not? Certainly news meets your criteria of being ubiquitous and necessary. Why should we treat Twitter differently than Fox News?
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Do we require national newspapers and television stations to carry political messages? Do we treat news like a utility now? Why not? Certainly news meets your criteria of being ubiquitous and necessary. Why should we treat Twitter differently than Fox News?
You are missing many important differences.
Included among these are the fact that newspapers are not real time, pretty much unidirectional, and much more of a replacement for one another often with little to no switching cost.
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Politicians, public officials and government agencies interact with their constituents on Twitter, turning it into a digital town square. This is why Donald Trump was legally barred from blocking Twitter users.
That Twitter can permanently ban users (while also banning attempts at ban evasion) is inconsistent with that premise. At a minimum, a Twitter ban should at most place someone in a position where they can only reply to / tag government officials and agencies.
Imagine if during the Trump era one of the
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It'd be interesting to know what he thinks the 'business model' of such utilities should be. If they were freed from an advertising-based funding model, poof would go 80% of the motive for their surveillance of their customers. Then again, so to would go the main reason for their comments sections (where the lion's share of the most offensive speech occurs). Currently the comment sections are part of the model to rope you in and keep you on the sites. And the more inflammatory, the better. Even Slashdo
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I'm not sure I understand this, is he really saying that spokesmen for - say - Al Quaeda or ISIS should have the right to disseminate propaganda via Twitter or Facebook? This assumes the spokesmen are US citizens, but I'm sure they have members who qualify.
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I'm not sure I understand this, is he really saying that spokesmen for - say - Al Quaeda or ISIS should have the right to disseminate propaganda via Twitter or Facebook? This assumes the spokesmen are US citizens, but I'm sure they have members who qualify.
Not at all. He is saying elected officials should be making choices that are currently made by companies staff.
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He is saying elected officials should be making choices that are currently made by companies staff.
Well that will totally make it better. Cough.
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He is saying elected officials should be making choices that are currently made by companies staff.
Well that will totally make it better. Cough.
Its quite unlikely to make it worse. A lot more upside than downside. The possibility of voting an extremist out.
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Came here to say the same thing.
I can change my browser, or OS, or bookmarks.
I cannot change my ISP (without sacrificing speed and going dial-up).
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This ^^^^ SO much fucking this!
No, what the virtual f*ck. (Score:2)
It's not like Thomas can do anything about it unless a case comes before the court which means it would have had to go through all the lower courts first.
That said, this is just illustrating that you can't have it both ways. If you want to regulate the infrastructure like a utility, then the companies who dominate the usage of it get the same treatment. It also illustrates the bullsh*t case those companies were making fro net neutrality. They didn't want to pay more for prioritizing traffic. Instead, th
What does that help? (Score:2)
This is a terrible idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because lots of people like to use something, it should have more government restrictions? I say no.
Common carrier status was created because of natural monopolies. There is no limit on the number of websites that can "compete for your business".
Re:This is a terrible idea (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of options for cell phone carriers, yet those are still common carriers. Would you thing it OK for Verizon to start blocking conservative SMS messages because you have the option to switch to AT&T?
What if all the companies adopt similar political stances and you have plenty of options but none want to carry your communications? What if that becomes the case so another company starts up to offer service but Samsung decides that they don't support that political position so they don't allow their phones to work on that network. Nearly all the other phone makers follow suit so now the open option isn't really an option unless they make their own phones . . . and then the component suppliers don't agree so they refuse to sell parts to them. So they are basically not allowed to serve your market segment unless they setup their own towers, built their own phones, make their own components, and setup their own mines to digs the raw materials from the Earth. Oh and they better have the capital for all this sitting in a warehouse somewhere because the banks have decided that they also won't do business with them.
Whether Thomas' approach is the correct one I don't know, but it's an attempt to solve a very real problem: private corporations are attempting to leverage their positions to control the political landscape. This is wrong in spirit if not yet in law, and as such it's the job of the government to attempt to fix the law to improve the issue.
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Re:This is a terrible idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you think the "far left" is in charge of those companies
Indirectly, sorta they do. Why do Facebook and Twitter censor some posts? Because when they don't, the public complains and threatens to boycott them and their advertisers, and the advertisers threaten to leave. That's how you get stuff like StopHateForProfit. Ultimately, the public blames the messenger, so the messenger changes the message. The only way to get Facebook and Twitter to become neutral platforms is for the public to stop demanding censorship.
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So, yeah, just because you run one of the most powerful corporations on the planet doesn't mean you can't be a left-wing radical.
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And the election before, he did his best to get Trump elected. It isn't politics, it is whatever keeps eyeballs on Facebook, and divisive politics is a way to do that. Next election, odds are he'll be supporting whoever the challenger is.
The idea that one of the richest men in the world is far left is weird to say the least and only possible in a country where not so insanely right wing means left rather then regular right wing.
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Re:This is a terrible idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh fuck off with the 'cancel culture' BS. The people that complain the most loudly about 'cancel culture' are people that go on news show after news show, podcast after podcast, whining that the left 'cancelled' them. The fact that I keep hearing from these assholes shows exactly that 'cancel culture' is, in fact, a construct of the right. It's not a real thing. People that get cancelled still get on Fox news, on Joe Rogan, hell, even into NY Times stories and editorials.
Yeah, Louis CK is cancelled. Last I heard, he was playing clubs again and you can still buy his stand up comedy to stream.
People don't have a right TO INFLUENCE and ATTENTION. Being knocked down from a place of incredible privilege and influence to a place of slightly less influence and privilege isn't a problem to anyone except the whiniest of snowflake demagogues.
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Until the same laws let someone else censor them.
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Back to social media, it’s also not private citizens job to uphold the free speech the government grants. Trying to force that is forced speech and or forced association rather than freedoms. The USPS is an amazing free speech success story, it’s efficient (despite attempts at financial sabotage), services everyone including unprofitable
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There are essentially only three (ish) options for cell phone carriers in the United States: AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Okay, US Cellular if you want to be pedantic, but they're only 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the other three. Virtually every other one is owned by one of those three and just an exercise in branding. Remeber, MVNOs [wikipedia.org], like Google Fi, Cricket, and Straight Talk, do not own networks and are just leasing infrastructure.
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Ok. How many real, legitimate social network options are out there? Not just ones that exist and no one uses, but the big players? Pretty much Facebook (which includes Instagram), Twitter, and . . . Tik-tok? Using just about anything else would be akin to setting up your own transmitter in your own back yard and calling that a cell network (I mean, it broadcasts - the coverage is just tiny). And attempts to setup a conservative friendly service have been squashed.
Basically the few companies in charge ha
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Terrible Analogy - A service is not a protocol (Score:3)
There are plenty of options for cell phone carriers, yet those are still common carriers. Would you thing it OK for Verizon to start blocking conservative SMS messages because you have the option to switch to AT&T?
What if all the companies adopt similar political stances and you have plenty of options but none want to carry your communications? What if that becomes the case so another company starts up to offer service but Samsung decides that they don't support that political position so they don't allow their phones to work on that network. Nearly all the other phone makers follow suit so now the open option isn't really an option unless they make their own phones . . . and then the component suppliers don't agree so they refuse to sell parts to them. So they are basically not allowed to serve your market segment unless they setup their own towers, built their own phones, make their own components, and setup their own mines to digs the raw materials from the Earth. Oh and they better have the capital for all this sitting in a warehouse somewhere because the banks have decided that they also won't do business with them.
First of all, stop saying "conservatives." No one was banned for voicing concerns about government size or spending (wouldn't it be nice if you "conservatives" actually gave a shit about conservative issues when Republicans were in office). If you got banned, it was for being linked to violence. Sorry, raiding the capital is a crime.
No one would cry if someone got banned for bragging about murdering policemen in an armed robbery...why do you feel you deserve to brag about killing policemen in the nam
Re:This is a terrible idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because lots of people like to use something, it should have more government restrictions?.
Yes. Actually, that's exactly why the government should regulate. Regulation should protect the public good.
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What kind of test would you apply to determine if a private service had become a government-supported/enforced monopoly?
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When your Website becomes a primary communication platform for certain other organizations, then your limitations on or from that platform become problematic. Say Company X uses Facebook to communicate internal information to employees, but then Employee Y is banned from Facebook because they shared one too many conspiracy theories that have been debunked far too many times.
Personally, I prefer companies not use Facebook to exclusively communicate, but that's a hard policy to push.
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Say Company X uses Facebook to communicate internal information to employees
Ewwww. How could that even be a thing? What company lacks internal email in this millennium?
It's *not* a utility. Killing competition (Score:4, Insightful)
Elevating Facebook as a utility effectively kills off any possible innovation to disrupt & replace them.
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Elevating Facebook as a utility effectively kills off any possible innovation to disrupt & replace them.
Yeah, I totally want someone to successfully demonstrate a way to garner more of my attention so that they can displace FB in the marketplace... </sarcasm>
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I don't really know what you're saying, but the fact that Snapchat and Tiktok exist is evidence that social media today is continuously being disrupted.
Who knows what the giant social media network will be invented around next year that will steal even more eyeballs from Facebook.
If Facebook is made a utility then the government is for all intents and purposes sanctioning them as one, and sending a signal to all other incumbents to stay out of the market.
For an example on how regulating utilities damages in
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Alternatively it could make Facebook a half decent place to talk to people, in the knowledge that your every interaction won't be monetized and sold to the lowest bidder.
Lots of places have publicly owned mail service, for example, and it seems to be okay. Does not seem to have prevented private companies from competing and innovating either.
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Yes a government owned and operated social network - exactly what we should all be looking for. There is no way that will ever go sideways....
Do you seriously care less about the government monitoring all your communications than you do about a corperation? Which one has the worse motive? One of them is just out to potentially influence a purchase decision. The other is out to potentially stifle dissent and control the populace.
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Do you seriously think that the government doesn't monitor all Facebook communications?
The NSA says otherwise, according to the Snowden leaks.
I'm not actually in favour of this though. I don't think ICANN has proven to be very reliable, for example.
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Elevating Facebook as a utility effectively kills off any possible innovation to disrupt & replace them.
The world does not need better social media, it needs less social media.
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Odd, AT&T has competition (Score:2)
Elevating Facebook as a utility effectively kills off any possible innovation to disrupt & replace them.
Really? Wasn't AT&T disrupted and largely replaced as a communications tool? Just one of various within a niche?
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You can create your own electric company if you want - no one is stopping you. But there is a reliable (outside Texas) grid as an alternative.
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I really don’t understand people’s frustration with this; Thomas is correct—these companies are monopolies due to network effects. By classifying them as a natural monopoly and regulating them as a utility you create a structure to address them.
This does not mean that no other companies can try to compete with them, or that they will remain in a dominant position forever, only that the regulatory framework that should be applied is one of a utility.
So, in practical terms, you limit their
I follow this logic, but .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it possible to declare these social media services "common carriers" without taking away their status as private businesses?
I guess I struggle with the idea that we need to first label them "public utilities" before we're able to simply say, "The law will protect the rights of users of your service to communicate freely on it, because your purpose is to ensure the communications can flow freely from point A to B; not to selectively censor the content flowing from A to B."
Re:I follow this logic, but .... (Score:5, Informative)
Except for the USPS, every other common carrier in existence is a private business. The major point of labeling some service a "common carrier" is to make exactly the statement that you wrote: that their business is so widely used and vital to the public that they need specific legal cause to deny or differentiate their service towards some customers.
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Yes, I suppose that's true. But I guess I'm also thinking of situations like the cable companies, where they've been declared Federally regulated monopolies. Still private businesses, but not free to operate without government controls on things like rates.
I'm (obviously!) no lawyer or legal expert! But isn't this really the problem with the courts opting to label these web-based social media sites "public utilities"? That presumes they then fall under the control of a government agency who will impose m
Re:I follow this logic, but .... (Score:4, Informative)
I am no lawyer either, but I think you are mixing a fair number of different legal concepts that are not exactly the same, even though they are related.
First, cable companies are usually federally regulated, but not as monopolies -- if they are regulated as monopolies, that would be done at the state or local level. Only some cable rates rates are controlled, although rarely, and never by the federal government, according to the FCC [fcc.gov]. Every large company has to deal with a number of federal regulations, from employment anti-discrimination to workplace safety to pollution controls and on and on.
Second, public utility [cornell.edu] is a much broader category than common carrier is. Being a common carrier comes with a lot of specific regulations, and being a public utility comes with a different set.
Third, when it comes to laws and regulations, the legislative branch -- rather than the judicial branch -- is supposed to define which companies fall into the "public utilities" or "common carrier" category. A judge might say "public utility" in an informal sense, but unless there is an actual case or controversy about whether regulation X applies to company Y, a judge does not say that company Y is governed as a public utility. A judge might -- as Justice Thomas did -- say that there are good reasons to govern company Y as a public utility, but that does not control either company Y or the executive-branch agencies that regulate company Y. Such a comment is dicta [lectlaw.com]. At the federal level, Congress would need to write laws that classify services like Facebook or Twitter as common carriers, or otherwise apply new regulations to them.
Misleading headline (Score:2)
video and print News (Score:2)
Why would we not make the same argument for a nation news outlet? NYT doesn't have to print your story, why would Twitter have to?
National news outlets have competition, just like Internet sites, unlike your local phone company that has been granted a monopoly. Thomas is crazy.
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All Thomas is saying is that if Twitter is enough like AT&T, in that it provides public communication infrastructure, then maybe it should face similar rules on how they treat content.
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All Digital Walled Gardens Should be Utilities (Score:4, Insightful)
Google Accounts and for that matter Apple, Microsoft, etc accounts must be governed as utilities.
Before conservatives jump down my throat. Do you really want Google locking out some conservative from their emails cause of something they said?
What about when you do a charge-back cause of a BS charge? I once had Adsense bill me $300 when they gave me a $50 credit. Turns out it didn't just hit $0 and stop. I wasn't even aware of what I was doing. I would have done a charge back but I knew if I did I'd be locked out of my email. This type of blackmail should not be possible.
This law must apply to Sony, Nintendo, EA, Valve, etc as well. We need some rules of the road when it comes to what rights consumers have. Right now in this sphere they basically have none. They will sell you thousands worth of skins then just lock your account and tell you "tough shit" if something happens. There's very little oversight.
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Microsoft has positioned itself in a way that I think it ends up being a utility as well, but I don’t get why you would classify Apple that way.
For Microsoft to get away from this level of regulation, they would only need to make a few minor changes to policy.
As for people... might be a good idea to get an email account that is not linked to any of the big players. It is too much of a link to your identity at this point.
Utilities? (Score:2)
No thanks.
"required", as in many locales require you to have running water service to proclaim a house "fit for habitation".
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First make the internet a public utility (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet needs to become a public utility first to regulate prices, speed, infrastructure. We are the country that created the internet and we pay the most for the slowest speeds compared to other countries.
The internet is the highway and any kind of private business can open along the highway. So the businesses on the highway shouldn't be public utilities, but the highway should be.
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It is a public highway, but should never be controlled.
Who would you trust to make the rules?
The right answer is NO ONE and therefor NO RULES!
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Ludacris (Score:3)
We all know with out the rule 230 protection there would be no social media.
There is to much money involved, it will never happened.
Anyplace with a comment section (Score:2)
is social media. Anyplace with a moderated comment section is protected by Sec 230. Get rid of 230 and no more comment moderation. At all.
WHAT? (Score:3)
One usually PAYS for utilities (Score:3)
An not with a large piece of privacy.
I agree with Thomas for once (Score:3)
Calling them a utility is akin to calling them natural monopoly, given the network effects. I think this is the first time I have ever agreed with a Thomas opinion— but maybe it is the right approach. Regulate them like a utility— it doesn’t prevent competition or startups which do not initially hit the bar as a utility. But, instead of acknowledging them as a monopoly, you force them to be a public good.
The only downside I can see is that the platforms still have an impossible task, but that is a problem of their own making.
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Separate issues. Yes, ISPs need to be held to a higher standard— especially if a meaningful population continues to work from home for the indefinite future. However they are regulated by the FCC, and until regulations or laws properly categorize them we are in trouble.
Well...then logically... (Score:3)
If we're going to make these technology-based companies Utilities, then perhaps we should also do the same to ISPs? You can't really have access to Facebook, Twitter and Google without some sort of ISP.
Is Thomas, right-winger, advocating... (Score:2, Insightful)
...nationalizing them?
I will note that if we do, there will be a huge reaction in every other country. I guaranty that the US will be accused of doing what Russia is doing, controlling the 'Net in country.
Oh, and I note someone is saying that it would "stifle innovation on faceplant". I want innovation: I want EVERY DAMN MANAGER AND PROGRAMMER FIRED, ESCORTED OUT THE DOOR, AND HAVE THE ENTIRE PoS REWRITTEN. Consistency? Reasonable responses? Response time? You think it has any of them? Then I've got a brid
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This would be the opposite of what some other countries are doing - preventing censorship, not requiring it.
I mostly hate Thomas, but he has a point (Score:2)
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Exactly. This also gives a good way to reconcile EU and US requirements in a way that more reasonably addresses the unique differences in laws.
Struggling to see (Score:2)
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Another Big Government Republican (Score:4, Insightful)
Since his first day, Justice Thomas has shown he does not have a grasp on what the Constitution says or its meaning. He has taken every opportunity presented to expand the power of government, to expand the power of the office of the presdient (but only when a Republican is in office), to ignore the First Amendment's separation of Church and State, while at the same time restricting or even removing the rights of the people.
It's doubtful the man has ever seen a case where he didn't find an excuse to have Big Government run amok. This latest case only amplifies his actions: have private industry be taken over and regulated by the government because he doesn't like their policies.
Re:Another Big Government Republican (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a pretty negative way to interpret this, IMO.
I read it more as Thomas saying he sees a serious problem with the way social media sites have become so integrated into our daily lives. (People use Facebook and the like throughout each day for things like staying in touch with friends via IM, buying/selling/trading items, and to stay informed on news or current events - thanks to the prolific sharing of links on people's feeds.) Once you have that level of use of the services, it's a communications tool equivalent to the traditional telephone or postal mail in many ways.
So it becomes a real problem when these services are still compelled to control what they feel is "ok" to share or say. Facebook's decision to throw someone in "jail" for 30 days or more, preventing them from communicating on the service, starts impacting a lot of things. People are generating income via sales on the platform, running charities and more. I've personally seen people get slapped with these temporary bans for things as ridiculous as commenting about how much they enjoy listening to Led Zeppelin and a link of theirs causing the uncensored album cover from "Houses of the Holy" to appear in the feed.
The struggle seems to be how to deal with this from a legal standpoint, and Thomas seems to (correctly, IMO) identify that assigning them a "common carrier" status may be appropriate. Where it gets murky for me is only the idea that labeling them "public utilities" as part of this implies they'd be treated like regulated monopolies and government would control far more than just ensuring content flows freely on the platforms.
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Isn't telephone lines one2one (Score:2)
I think the answer is to give the social media full responsibility so they no longer can rely on algorithms to clean up, and break them up to avoid monopolies.
That said: Facebook could be a common carrier for a lot of self-editing entities, who take full responsibility. Then Facebook only provides infrastructure and optional algorithms. Then left and right wing communities could
The whole problem, it seems to me.... (Score:5, Insightful)
is that politicians and celebrities and others with large followings have put themselves in a position where Facebook or Twitter can effectively pull the plug on you if you say something they don't like. In the old days, people would build their own websites and pay people to run and promote them. When you do that you control the message and wield the editorial power.
Then they discovered that you could put up a Facebook fan site for free or a Twitter account for free and suddenly reach millions and millions of people without having to pay either company a dime. Sounds great. Except that now Facebook and Twitter decide what gets said and wield full editorial power. The more followers you have the greater their power and the more difficult it is for you to leave the platform. This is the trap. Trump amassed 10's of millions of followers and I bet in his wildest dreams he would never imagine they would just cut him off. But cut him off they did. His inflammatory rhetoric got to the point that Facebook and Twitter just decided it was easier to silence him than deal with the blow back.
The moral of the story? Don't put your messaging and branding in the hands of someone that can just cut you off on a whim. If you want to have a FB or Twitter page fine, but don't let it be central to your platform.
Thomas also just said Oracle should be able (Score:4, Insightful)
If Twitter is a utility, what is Comcast? (Score:3)
Let's make internet a utility first, then we can work on what is hosted on the utility.
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I can only judge you by your own words, so I have to judge that you're a complete and utter moron.
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Perhaps the problem there was that you didn't know something they did, not that they were hypocrites. Did you know that early drafts of the 2nd Amendment required every household to have military-grade firearms? It was generalized because anti-Federalists didn't like the idea of government forcing people to buy things any more than they liked the idea of being prevented from defending themselves - and because they were aware that technology impr
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You do know that there are laws that prevent your cell provider from dropping your call if you express opinions they don't like, right?
Do the math, hang your head in shame, learn from your mistake.
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