Are Social Media Platforms a Public Utility and Domain ?

[Pelagic]

Here is the Rub and perhaps a key to a future solution .

These social platforms are free. Meaning that we are not customers and have no Rights.

Yet our combined contributions are what makes them interesting and of value to each other.

As a result, we are tracked, data mined, sold to advertisers and censored....without any say in the matter

What if instead we supported platforms that did not data mine/censor or sell advertising by paying a small monthly fee..., just as you would pay to get on a bus.

As customers, we would have rights that could be enforced by an internet consumer protection agency.

Would this break the monopolies and allow customers to choose the level of content that suits them...?

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

...What if instead we supported platforms that did not data mine/censor or sell advertising by paying a small monthly fee..., just as you would pay to get on a bus.

You'll have to quit CF then. I currently see five trackers and snoopers attempting to mine my data on this very page.

Originally Posted by Pelagic

As customers, we would have rights that could be enforced by an internet consumer protection agency.

There's a whole movement out there now focused on exactly this issue. The perspectives range from simple privacy protection, to control of our personal data, to actually being compensated by all these platforms who make profit off our personal data and contributions, but pay us nothing.

I'm all for CF paying us for all our hard work

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Would this break the monopolies and allow customers to choose the level of content that suits them...?

It would change things, but I have no doubt that smart and useful businesses would still find a way to make a profit.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I listened to a comment by Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow, Hoover Institution about the rise of censorship over the Internet.

He pointed out that the irony in this is that this was adjudicated in the 1900's when Railroad companies, Phone and Oil companies who were private companies, actually used the public domain and were seen as necessary services.

Therefore, they were designated as Public Utilities and were required to follow oversight standards of performance and policy.

However, today these internet private companies have now become the moderators unto themselves for at times, obvious political and personal reasons.

Should internet platforms be allowed to shut down any contrary opinion without specific guidelines agreed to by independent oversight?

The purpose of the internet it to transport data. In that regards the analogy to railroads is apt. Both the railroads and the internet have required significant public support in terms of access to public right of way and regulatory protections.

In the US the internet is substantially a public utility. While it has not been declared as such for legal purposes, I feel that that day is approaching. The fights about Net Neutrality seem to be pointing the way towards internet access becoming a public utility.



If by internet you mean social media platforms then you are conflating that with the internet and they are VERY different things.

In that regards an analogy to newspapers is much more apt.

The purpose of newspapers is to provide news and opinion and maybe make money while doing so. Opinion in the US is protected by the first amendment to the US constitution. The folks that own the newspapers get to decide whose opinions they wish to publish. Why should they publish opinions that are detrimental to their interests? There are some things they are occasionally required to print such as contracts being let for bid and legal proceedings that need to be publicly announced prior to going into effect, but the papers usually get paid the standard rates for those.

The purpose of social media platforms is to make money by providing a means for a large random group of folks to exchange opinions, personal news and general news. The people that own the platform get to decide what news and opinion is published, either generally or within small groups of members. On the whole they are pretty lax about what they allow to be published. When publishing something costs them in revenue by negatively impacting advertisers or by attracting regulatory scrutiny they crack down on that.

The folks that complain about having their opinions censored by social media platforms are free to set up their own websites to publish their opinions. The problem is they want the large audience that existing platforms have without actually having to spend the time, effort and money to develop such a platform. Also, if they are trying to publish what would generally be considered "Fringe" opinions an audience base will never develop. So complaints about censorship really boil down to wanting the audience that somebody else has paid to develop.

Finally the suggestion of "independent oversight" deciding what opinions a platform can remove or just not publish in the first place sounds an awful lot like having the government do the job. If the platforms as a group decide who this censoring body is then it's still their own pet censor. If the government decides then there are problems with the first amendment. Or there can be some mish-mash combination of the two but that's just the worst of both worlds.

Regarding the first amendment in the current political situation. Incitement to insurrection, rebellion or riot are not protected opinion under the first amendment.
Somewhere between "I don't like the current government" and "Let's physically overthrow the current government" is the line between what is and isn't protected speech and the middle part between them has a fair bit of gray. Now that an attempt has been made to physically interfere in government processes a lot of the darker gray areas will now be seen as black both by government authorities and by the public at large.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Here is the Rub and perhaps a key to a future solution .

These social platforms are free. Meaning that we are not customers and have no Rights.

Yet our combined contributions are what makes them interesting and of value to each other.

As a result, we are tracked, data mined, sold to advertisers and censored....without any say in the matter

What if instead we supported platforms that did not data mine/censor or sell advertising by paying a small monthly fee..., just as you would pay to get on a bus.

As customers, we would have rights that could be enforced by an internet consumer protection agency.

Would this break the monopolies and allow customers to choose the level of content that suits them...?

An interesting proposal... but the cat's out of the bag. Every for-profit community platform (CF included) is going to do everything it can to generate profit, including the sale of user data, if there's a market for it. Even before "the internet", magazine and newspaper publishers sold and traded their subscriber info. Ever filled out a pre-internet warranty card? 90% of the requested info was for marketing and other uses. So there is simply no way we should expect that a paid membership or subscriber model would significantly reduce data collection and mining.

I think the EU is going in the right direction with a sort of "user's bill of rights". I've also wondered whether user data could be managed by government-regulated "data protection" companies, and other companies are required to use them for storage and mining, so that every access and use is tracked, and could therefore be policed. But that seems pretty Orwellian... and it's probably too late. Our data is out there, in mostly private hands, and it will be hard to reel it back in.

Anyway, this is tangential to the issue of content censoring.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

You all seem to have zeroed in on the key distinction: who's curating and publishing content (so are accountable), and who's simply carrying or facilitating the publishing done by others.

Something like Facebook really blurs the lines. At heart they are a sort of managed community and a simple self-publishing tool. But the extent to which they interact with "publishers" and viewers - particularly when it comes to choosing what content to push to members, really blurs the line



...What "agenda" does some company like FB have, besides growth and profit?

Manipulation/Control of the strings of power.. they have the power to create opinions, markets and much more.
Google Search engines lead you to preferred sites and market places, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can have countless company 'Bots' to provoke, drive and control content direction then say "it's the Russians or Chinese".. no way Joe Public can prove either way.
Let's face it it.. Power corrupts and you can't tell me Zuckerberg, Bezos etc are immune any more than you can tell me Bill and Hillary are actually Josef and Mary..

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Manipulation/Control of the strings of power.. they have the power to create opinions, markets and much more.
Google Search engines lead you to preferred sites and market places, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can have countless company 'Bots' to provoke, drive and control content direction then say "it's the Russians or Chinese".. no way Joe Public can prove either way.
Let's face it it.. Power corrupts and you can't tell me Zuckerberg, Bezos etc are immune any more than you can tell me Bill and Hillary are actually Josef and Mary..

You still didn't answer the question of agenda, or why it's alleged to be against "conservative" voices. (and this ignores a whole rabbit-hole of manufacturing opinion that culminates in backwards and threatening developments like, for example, Wednesday in DC)

I think we all agree that at or above a certain amount, money is equivalent to power. And fewer, but still most of us probably agree that many western "democracies" are pretty much controlled by those with the wealth. Since there's no connection between stifling conservatives and earning profit... I see no company agendas other than survival and profit (and the control that comes from amassing wealth).

[Sand crab]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Let's face it it.. Power corrupts and you can't tell me Zuckerberg, Bezos etc are immune any more than you can tell me Bill and Hillary are actually Josef and Mary..

What analogy would we use for D & M? Or not use?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Manipulation/Control of the strings of power.. they have the power to create opinions, markets and much more.

Google Search engines lead you to preferred sites and market places, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can have countless company 'Bots' to provoke, drive and control content direction then say "it's the Russians or Chinese".. no way Joe Public can prove either way.

Let's face it it.. Power corrupts and you can't tell me Zuckerberg, Bezos etc are immune any more than you can tell me Bill and Hillary are actually Josef and Mary..

The difference is you are free to disengage from anything mr zuckerberg offers or even start your own

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

The difference is you are free to disengage from anything mr zuckerberg offers or even start your own

In that case why do you bitch about Brexit or Trump.. you've chosen to live in Spain it seems..
Just disengage..
As for Zuckerberg offerings.. I left FB years ago and am now not on Twitter either.. Presidential treatment..

And to Lake Effect.. Who knows their agenda for sure though they do appear to lean favorably toward the Left when one looks at their censorship program.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by boatman61

In that case why do you bitch about Brexit or Trump.. you've chosen to live in Spain it seems..
Just disengage..
As for Zuckerberg offerings.. I left FB years ago and am now not on Twitter either.. Presidential treatment..

And to Lake Effect.. Who knows their agenda for sure though they do appear to lean favorably toward the Left when one looks at their censorship program.

I have made a few comments about Brexit and and more about Trump, but I don’t live in Spain

I’m not sure what you mean at all. I post because “ it’s there. “ I also post on political sites because they are “ there “. If they arnt there it’s no loss really

Why would i “ disengage “ ( I actually don’t have a Twitter account and use FB very sparingly. )

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Who knows their agenda for sure though they do appear to lean favorably toward the Left when one looks at their censorship program.

But WHY? You can't claim they're censoring to push some agenda if you can't describe or identify that agenda.

Many outlets have censored more right-wing content and sources... maybe because more of that content has been false or misleading, intentionally divisive, offensive, and in some cases dangerous? Or it could simply be that it has garnered more complaints, especially when it's false. List out the sources or content that have been censored... it's usually pretty clear why.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

But WHY? You can't claim they're censoring to push some agenda if you can't describe or identify that agenda.

Many outlets have censored more right-wing content and sources... maybe because more of that content has been false or misleading, intentionally divisive, offensive, and in some cases dangerous? Or it could simply be that it has garnered more complaints, especially when it's false. List out the sources or content that have been censored... it's usually pretty clear why.

Okay.. Whatever..

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by boatman61

...
And to Lake Effect.. Who knows their agenda for sure though they do appear to lean favorably toward the Left when one looks at their censorship program.

USA “ left” = centre right in any other reality

There is no evidence they censor one political perspective , they censure lies ,adhominen stuff and incitement

What’s the issue. Recently some “ guy” incited a riot , he was censored , big deal
( this isn’t my opinion , this is what they said )

[sandy stone]

I suppose the idea of free speech includes trying to convince people that an election didn't go their way because of a vast, undetected(!) network of Satan-worshipping pedophiles involving multiple states, people of both political parties, voting machine manufacturers, and China. Publicly identifying specific people and companies and accusing them of criminal behavior, without proof, is taking it a bit too far. Trying to convince people that violence is the only way to right these imagined wrongs is indefensible, and leads to the surreal events of this past week, not to mention the planned kidnapping of a state governor, and some time back the armed attack on a pizza parlor, for God's sake.

The disturbing thing is how easily an obvious lie, if repeated often enough on the internet (especially by self-interested politicians) comes to be accepted as truth by such large numbers of people. The social media platforms, caught in the middle, are only doing the bare minimum to protect the public at large from nut cases espousing violence, and are having to make up the rules as they go along in an evolving situation.

[redneckrob]

I find a huge degree of irony when I see folks posting on a forum like this, that only exists because they aren't subject to the difficulty and cost of regulation and liability for user generated content, advocating for a future where forums like this would all instantly cease to be viable and go out of business. In no universe does the owner of CF have the resources to comply with regulations making them liable for what anyone posts and still have the ability to be profitable or in any way viable. Its a marginal business as it is with volunteer moderators. To maintain an acceptable risk level they'd need to hold every post for review before letting it become viewable to the public which would be massively expensive and completely unworkable. And they would still be legally able to "censor" any viewpoint they wished, in fact their liability would force them to censor dramatically more.

Be careful what you all wish for. Don't let politics and anger lead to destruction of communities like this one just because no one actually thought through the actual implications from the perspective of those running a forum like this one.