If you think shutting down Facebook would result in people being unable to communicate and assemble you obviously haven't studied history or even been around on the Internet very long.
Within seconds of Facebook shutting down millions of people will have already migrated to something else that serves the same purpose. Then ten years later people will be saying things like, "Remember Facebook?" "Facebook?! Pfft! I remember MySpace!"
>If you think shutting down Facebook would result in people being unable to communicate and assemble you obviously haven't studied history or even been around on the Internet very long.
I don't think that, and I don't suggest it is the case in my comment. I do not think Facebook is critical in the sense that if it went down, people would be unable to communicate and assemble. Please read my comment more closely.
An individual does not have the choice of communicating via Facebook or shutting it down, only between communicating with someone on Facebook and not communicating with them on a platform they don't use.
Or you could use another method of communication. You are not entitled to the Facebook communication channel or any other privately owned channel. The unstated suggestion that lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to effective communication in our society is untrue. Just because the only contact you have for an individual is Facebook doesn't mean you're entitled to use Facebook. My only line of contact to my ex is her xbox-live account, does that mean I am entitled to XBLA or would you deign to allow Microsoft to ban people from the network it owns.
>You are not entitled to the Facebook communication channel or any other privately owned channel.
Legally, that is true. I don't think anyone in this conversation or elsewhere is claiming that Facebook is illegally silencing people.
Of course, while you are not entitled to use Facebook, Facebook is, like all businesses regulated by various existing laws in the US, prohibited from denying you service based upon certain protected characteristics. I do not point that out to claim that Facebook is currently denying anyone service based upon those protected characteristics, only to point out that "it's privately owned" is an argument that lost most of its punch many decades ago.
Furthermore, the people being silenced by Facebook are well aware that the people calling for them to be silenced by Facebook and others are heavily in favor of those laws, so when they hear "Facebook is a private company so it can kick you off if it wants" from those people, it comes off to them as being very dishonest, partisan, and malicious.
>The unstated suggestion that lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to effective communication in our society is untrue.
Lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to participating in the (large) portion of the public political debate which takes place on Facebook. That is a problem we should be concerned about. We want to ensure people can meaningfully participate in the public political debate, because if they cannot, the alternative is violence.
> Legally, that is true. I don't think anyone in this conversation or elsewhere is claiming that Facebook is illegally silencing people.
You're missing my point. I'm saying that it makes no sense to say that Facebook cannot determine who is allowed to access their private property. The users do not pay Facebook for access and thus it is purely a business decision to determine who can and cannot access the site.
> Facebook is, like all businesses regulated by various existing laws in the US, prohibited from denying you service based upon certain protected characteristics
I am not disagreeing with the idea of regulations. If Facebook is running afoul of the law then they should face the consequences, but assuming they are not breaking the law, it should be Facebook's prerogative to ban users because Facebook bears the burden of developing the software and the ongoing costs of running the servers. Why should anyone be allowed to demand access to something that is wholly owned, operated, and funded by Facebook?
> Facebook is a private company so it can kick you off if it wants" from those people, it comes off to them as being very dishonest, partisan, and malicious.
What about it is dishonest or malicious? And how is this a partisan issue in any way? You already pointed out that legally Facebook can kick off any user they want, so are you arguing that the laws should be changed to prevent Facebook from doing so?
> Lacking access to Facebook is a fundamental barrier to participating in the (large) portion of the public political debate which takes place on Facebook
Facebook is a cesspool of memes and fake news, it is not at all relevant in the annals of "public political debate" any more than 4chan. I'm sure you'd say the same thing if 4chan was as popular as Facebook, but my point is that such reasoning is silly. The fundamental nature of Facebook is triviality and the idea that lacking access to Facebook is a precursor to violence is completely unsubstantiated.
>I'm saying that it makes no sense to say that Facebook cannot determine who is allowed to access their private property.
What?? That is exactly what anti-discrimination laws do.
>Why should anyone be allowed to demand access to something that is wholly owned, operated, and funded by Facebook?
Because we have decided for cases that other concerns are more important than their private property rights, which are far from being absolute.
>What about it is dishonest or malicious?
The people being deplatformed are, generally speaking, on the right wing. The people calling for right wingers to be deplatformed are, generally speaking, on the left wing. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that the left wing generally supports prohibiting private businesses from discriminating against people on the basis of e.g. sexual orientation, so when left wingers happily use "it's a private business" as an argument to support deplatforming right wingers, that comes off to right wingers as being partisan and phony. Given that speech is one important way in which people advocate for their interests, a partisan attack on the ability of people on the right wing to participate in the public conversation comes across as malicious.
>You already pointed out that legally Facebook can kick off any user they want, so are you arguing that the laws should be changed to prevent Facebook from doing so?
Yes, or regulations rewritten.
>Facebook is a cesspool of memes and fake news, it is not at all relevant in the annals of "public political debate" any more than 4chan.
Its userbase swamps that of 4chan. I'm not sure why memes wouldn't count as participation in the political conversation. They are modern day political slogans, propaganda posters, and political satire. Regardless, as you are probably aware, political campaigns have hugely invested in their social media presence. Are you saying that was all a waste?
>The fundamental nature of Facebook is triviality
I'm not sure why you think that the public political debate has ever been a deep and substantive one for the vast majority of participants. The depth of the conversations does not matter. Most people do not have to attention span for anything other than triviality.
>the idea that lacking access to Facebook is a precursor to violence is completely unsubstantiated.
The idea that lacking access to the public political conversation is a precursor to violence is a very old one, and has been substantiated many, many times.
> What?? That is exactly what anti-discrimination laws do.
So what? Does the existence of discrimination laws mean you can never deny service to anybody ever? Obviously not, so if Facebook is not in violation of anti-discrimination laws then why can't they ban people? The purpose of anti-discrimination laws are to prevent discrimination of protected classes, they are not meant to prohibit Facebook from moderating its platform.
> Because we have decided for cases that other concerns are more important than their private property rights, which are far from being absolute.
Once again, so what? There are no absolute legal rights including property rights, that doesn't mean that the logical mechanics of property rights are completely obliterated, I don't see any reasonable justification for why Facebook shouldn't be permitted to exercise their property rights to ban whoever they want, (again, provided the ban does not violate the law), especially because Facebook is a free and non-vital service the use of which is completely optional.
> The people being deplatformed are, generally speaking, on the right wing. The people calling for right wingers to be deplatformed are, generally speaking, on the left wing.
I see. This is a political debate I am uninterested in so I won't bother with it except to say that it is irrelevant to my point. I don't care about who is calling for who to be banned or other trivial dramatics occurring in the Facebook community, my argument is only addressing the nature of Facebook's prerogatives to operate their business.
> I'm not sure why memes wouldn't count as participation in the political conversation.
lol what? They obviously count as conversations, they're just utterly unimportant and not something society should care to ensure is available to the masses. Just because there are a lot of people on the Facebook network doesn't mean that society should guarantee access to a gallery of vapid image macros. There is nothing important about political discussion on Facebook and no user is materially harmed by having their access to Facebook revoked any more than having their HN account banned.
> Regardless, as you are probably aware, political campaigns have hugely invested in their social media presence. Are you saying that was all a waste?
I'm not saying that. Obviously politicians will advertise wherever there are eyeballs. What does that prove except that people use Facebook? Are you suggesting that the law should entitle people free access any medium where political ads are present?
> I'm not sure why you think that the public political debate has ever been a deep and substantive one for the vast majority of participants
I don't. That's exactly my point. It's substantively unimportant, nobody is harmed by not being able to participate in triviality; it's not like you need Facebook to vote, or to contact your senator, or to sit in on city council meetings, or to file a petition and gather signatures or literally anything relevant in the political process (and I'd argue it should be illegal to transition any of those political processes into a platform that doesn't end in .gov)
> The idea that lacking access to the public political conversation is a precursor to violence is a very old one, and has been substantiated many, many times.
You replaced "access to Facebook" with "access to the public political conversation" but lacking access to Facebook is absolutely not even close to the same as lacking access to "the public political conversation"; to suggest otherwise is either dishonest or an admission of ignorance regarding the nature of the political process and how politics work in the U.S and around the world. Yes, political discussion happens on Facebook like it does anywhere people have discussions, but the political discussions on Facebook are wholly unimportant and not something that society needs to ensure is available to the masses.
>Obviously not, so if Facebook is not in violation of anti-discrimination laws then why can't they ban people?
You should be able to guess what my answer will be here. They should not be allowed to ban people on the basis of their political speech because a large portion of the public political debate currently occurs on Facebook, and people lacking the ability to meaningfully participate in the public political debate is a precursor to real world violence, the avoidance of which is more important than Facebook's private property rights.
>that doesn't mean that the logical mechanics of property rights are completely obliterated
Telling Facebook they can't ban people on the basis of their political speech is not an obliteration of Facebook's property rights.
>they're just utterly unimportant and not something society should care to ensure is available to the masses.
I'm not sure what you mean by unimportant. Do you mean to claim that peoples' opinions cannot be influenced by them? If Facebook allows memes from one side of the political debate, but bans memes from the other side, do you believe that would have no influence on e.g. the outcome of elections?
>There is nothing important about political discussion on Facebook
Are you suggesting that what takes place on Facebook has no ability to influence e.g. the outcome of elections? Why then do politicians invest resources there?
>What does that prove except that people use Facebook?
It proves that Facebook is currently a place where people are influenced by political content.
>nobody is harmed by not being able to participate in triviality
That's absurd on its face. Losing access to Facebook results in losing access to a massive audience, which results in harm to people whose livelihood depends on access to the audience there, such as political commentators that rely on individual donations, e.g. Alex Jones. More broadly, given the obvious fact that political speech is one way in which people advocate for their interests, taking away their ability to meaningfully participate in the political debate reduces their ability to advocate for their interests.
>or to file a petition and gather signatures
If Facebook banned all links to your petition, would that not have a substantial effect on your ability to gather signatures?
>lacking access to Facebook is absolutely not even close to the same as lacking access to "the public political conversation"
Lacking access to Facebook quite obviously reduces a person's ability to meaningfully participate in the public political conversation.
>but the political discussions on Facebook are wholly unimportant
What exactly do you mean by "unimportant"? Tens and tens of millions of people are exposed to political ideas on Facebook, compared to the virtually none that sit in on city council meetings or contact their representatives, and the low numbers of millions soaking up the output of any given corporate media outlet. Do you think that is "unimportant"?
> Or you could use another method of communication.
No. If you cannot use another method of communication you cannot use another method of communication. Even if you dislike the obvious consequences: Facebook, like all other monopolies, cannot remain private property, much less unregulated.
Facebook does not have a monopoly on communication though... like not even close. If there is any such monopoly (I don't think there is) it'd fall at the foot of the telcos or ISPs
Facebook does not have a monopoly on communications just as Standard Oil did not have a monopoly on fuel -- you could always choose coal or wood instead. Communications is not just one monolithic market in which everything is substitutable for everything.
Another poor analogy. The differences between oil, coal and wood are the results of differences in their chemical structures which have immense implications regarding their individual utility. By comparison, Facebook is not producing "oil" while others are producing "wood", the communication offerings are practically identical in terms of functionality and utility (send text and images to other people), the only meaningful differences are a function of the individual not the company. If everyone I know uses Discord to communicate then Facebook is as good as "wood" to Discord's "oil".
> the communication offerings are practically identical in terms of functionality and utility (send text and images to other people)
To different groups of people. That makes them less substitutable than wood and oil. It's possible to create oil from wood, it's possible to build a car that runs on wood, you cannot substitute on human for another.
> If everyone I know uses Discord to communicate then Facebook is as good as "wood" to Discord's "oil".
That applies to essentially no one. And if you mean that everyone you know is on Discord but not on Facebook: That's an argument for regulating Discord, not against regulating Facebook.
So does the scenario where the only viable way to communicate is to use Facebook. Send an e-mail or make a phone call. Facebook is a trivial and unimportant distraction at best and is not the primary form of communication for the vast majority of people.
Also we've seen time and again big players being dominated by newcomers in the online communication space. There's no Myspace, or AOL, or Yahoo anymore and those companies would have be thought of as monopolies in their day.
Within seconds of Facebook shutting down millions of people will have already migrated to something else that serves the same purpose. Then ten years later people will be saying things like, "Remember Facebook?" "Facebook?! Pfft! I remember MySpace!"