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Comment by pitaj | Hacker News Reader

Whether or not they are governments is a question of definition. Definitions are important, and social networks don't fit very well into it.

They are fundamentally different from modern governments as they do not have a monopoly on coercion.

If social media are governments, then every corporation - no, every association of people - on Earth is a government.

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The key here is governance.

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I think if you click into the linked post, you get the analogy regarding governments and governance. Web platforms have to concern themselves with governance of their users and the respective eco-system that their users operate on.

The point is less to be abstract or symbolic, and instead look at the concrete decisions they have to make. Corporations or general relationships do not have to consider these points to the same degree for survival.

In the past, governments would create policies, laws, and make decisions that would determine the well being of a citizen. Now, web platforms are more commonly making decisions of regulation, censorship, interoperability, which all fall in the realm of governments.

  "So as you watch the large web services evolve, think 
  about how they are balancing the relationship between 
  the state and the private sector? What does Facebook's 
  introduction of Facebook Credits say about its monetary 
  policy? What is Apples foreign policy? Do they act 
  unilaterally promoting their own proprietary standards 
  or do they act multilaterally embracing international 
  standards? What is Twitter's industrial policy? Do they 
  invest in state owned services or encourage decentralized 
  economic development? The choices these platforms make 
  reveal a lot about who they are, and ultimately how well 
  they serve the companies operating in their economies and 
  the citizens who live there."

Companies or corporations in general may have a degree of these problems, but not in a way that their survival depends on.

Emphatic agreement.

Governance is the final frontier. By that I mean "How are grievances adjudicated?"

Any one struggling with the "platforms as government" analogy might think of MMORPGs instead.

The final frontier is coercion... threat to life and liberty. Saying MMORPG is a government because the game controls the adjudication of your grievances is like saying Macy's is a government because Macy's Customer Service adjudicates your grievances. Except when it doesn't. Except when the FTC, or the FBI, or any other (real) government overrules them.

I know this is an old thread, but wanted to note that this is similar to saying that federal courts are not courts because they can be overruled by the supreme court. The existence of more powerful forms of government does not negate the existence of less powerful forms.

I think the analogy is strained. But Facebook wields absolute coercion power inside their platform. Banning posts, pages, accounts, and apps without due process or recourse.

My parents run a business on Facebook and they have so many horror stories about the times Facebook has completely held their livelihood hostage. Or cut their revenue 10x with a single algorithm update.

Facebook wields absolute power over the platform, true. They do not coerce anyone by exercising that power, though.

Everyone on Facebook is on there voluntarily. People don't get to choose where they are born.

Don't get me wrong. I don't use Facebook, and I don't think anyone else should either. I would love if there were a (decentralized) replacement for it, and I think Facebook is on the way out.

> They do not coerce anyone by exercising that power, though.

I think you should elaborate on your definition of coercion here and what does and does not lie within its boundaries.

Coercion is the initialization of the use of force or fraud against another person or their property.

Facebook exercising their power over their own platform is not coercion. People do not own their Facebook pages.

this is untrue in both a moral and legal sense.

People absolutely own content they post to facebook.

No, it has shades of truth and untruth. Absolutism isn't a great look on you.

You own the content, in the meaning of the sense that you can prevent the public at large from seeing it.

You don't own the content, in that you never have physical control over deletion, whether or not facebook employees see the data, or whether or not facebook licenses the use of your data for profitability purposes. All of those strongly detract from any strong concept of ownership.

> They do not coerce anyone by exercising that power, though.

It's muuuuuuuuch worse than that. They actually hire people (20000 if I trust my local media) to actually "clean" facebook. So it means that facebook defines what is socially acceptable and what is not. And, contrary to the law, the definition is not written, not shared. I'd prefer physical coercion (normally attributed to police) any time.

Coercion is the initialization of the use of force or fraud against another person or their property.

Facebook exercising their power over their own platform is not coercion. People do not own their Facebook pages.

Facebook does not force you to use their service.

There is diaspora*, which aims to be a decentralized replacement. Though replacing the social inertia is much harder than creating the tech. https://diasporafoundation.org/

I've been getting into it over the last few weeks. I found a quiet server and invited my preferred friends. It's quiet and respectful and reminds me of the BBS days.

Would the downvoters explain their gripe with this comment? Am I missing something?

Once you've built an app or business on Facebook's platform, what are you choices really? You're at their mercy.

You can say, well they chose to use Facebook's platform, they can leave if they don't like the rules. But I can also leave my country if I don't like the rules (incidentally, I did this!)

Maybe coercion isn't the right word, but the power is absolute. Greater inside their own platform than the power of the state, because you have no legal recourse with Facebook's exercise of power. At least with the governments in the West you can write your congressman, lobby, sue them, etc.

coercion is absolutely the right word, don't let its definition get twisted.

My household is a government. When I was a kid, I was in a couple of clans in Blizzard games - governments. Sometimes I go out with friends for drinks and we form a short-term government to make decisions. We select a Minister of Transportation, and a Minister of Bar-Choosing.

Actually, whenever I start planning my day on a notepad...government of one.

Governments are organizations that govern. They don't need a monopoly on coercion to do that.

Nation-state governments don't have a monopoly on coercion. In the US at least, there are multiple political governments (state and Federal, not to mention HOA). Governments apply coercion across borders, and also residents can leave (most) nation-states.

>Government: the governing body of a nation, state, or community.

Is Facebook a community? If so it would seem it fits the plain dictionary definition.

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