Anti-speech pro-corporate-authority advocates always try to put these monopolistic, unescapable megacorporations in the same category as some local mom-and-pop operation. It's a massive intentional category error; megacorps are not little companies you can just walk awawy from. There is a point where a corporation's influence becomes so unescapable and so capable of greatly degrading your life that it must be treated in some ways like a government, for the same reasons we treat government differently from just another company or citizen.
The same reason that the phone company or a company that owns all the local roads or water mains can't decide to "stop serving" you because they don't like your religion.
>The same reason that the phone company or a company that owns all the local roads or water mains can't decide to "stop serving" you because they don't like your religion
Because it's hard to impossible to get alternate services for roads, water and electricity, i.e common carriers. But there are plenty of neo nazi forums, Gab, Truth Social, Parler, 4chan for racists to express and spread their views.
Facebook doesn't own all the local roads or water mains though. They're one website. It's just as easy to go to twitter.com as it is truthsocial.com or mastodon.social.
If Comcast owned practically the only ISP in my area then yes they should be considered a common carrier and shouldn't be able to discriminate traffic that isn't trying to break their stuff. In that case they would be the company that owns the roads or the water mains. Facebook isn't like that in the slightest.
Facebook, Twitter, etc. are not even close to inescapable. It's remarkably easy to leave those sites for one of the hundreds of other social media sites out there. We're using a nice one right now.
Okay, but how are they “inescapable”? I hear this argument a lot, but no one can seem to dot that very important i.
If I can’t use Facebook, I can use Reddit. If I can’t use YouTube, I can use Vimeo. If I can’t use Instagram, I can use TikTok or Snapchat. If conservatives get banned from Twitter, there’s a bevy of conservative-leaning Twitter clones. Plus Mastodon, which you can’t get banned from because you can just set up your own instance.
> The Texas law forbids social media companies with at least 50 million monthly active users from acting to "censor" users based on "viewpoint," and allows either users or the Texas attorney general to sue to enforce the law.
> This chapter applies only to a social media platform that functionally has more than 50 million active users in the United States in a calendar month.
jlawson|3 years ago
Anti-speech pro-corporate-authority advocates always try to put these monopolistic, unescapable megacorporations in the same category as some local mom-and-pop operation. It's a massive intentional category error; megacorps are not little companies you can just walk awawy from. There is a point where a corporation's influence becomes so unescapable and so capable of greatly degrading your life that it must be treated in some ways like a government, for the same reasons we treat government differently from just another company or citizen.
The same reason that the phone company or a company that owns all the local roads or water mains can't decide to "stop serving" you because they don't like your religion.
belltaco|3 years ago
Because it's hard to impossible to get alternate services for roads, water and electricity, i.e common carriers. But there are plenty of neo nazi forums, Gab, Truth Social, Parler, 4chan for racists to express and spread their views.
vel0city|3 years ago
If Comcast owned practically the only ISP in my area then yes they should be considered a common carrier and shouldn't be able to discriminate traffic that isn't trying to break their stuff. In that case they would be the company that owns the roads or the water mains. Facebook isn't like that in the slightest.
SantalBlush|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
fzeroracer|3 years ago
Could you explain how these two things are identical?
scarface74|3 years ago
jakelazaroff|3 years ago
If I can’t use Facebook, I can use Reddit. If I can’t use YouTube, I can use Vimeo. If I can’t use Instagram, I can use TikTok or Snapchat. If conservatives get banned from Twitter, there’s a bevy of conservative-leaning Twitter clones. Plus Mastodon, which you can’t get banned from because you can just set up your own instance.
belltaco|3 years ago
csande17|3 years ago
> The Texas law forbids social media companies with at least 50 million monthly active users from acting to "censor" users based on "viewpoint," and allows either users or the Texas attorney general to sue to enforce the law.
From the law (https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/872/billtext/html/HB00020F...):
> This chapter applies only to a social media platform that functionally has more than 50 million active users in the United States in a calendar month.