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Comment by as300 | Hacker News Reader

Their monopoly is on discourse and dissemination of information.

I'm going to sound a bit paternalistic and anti-capitalist here, because I am. Facebook is no longer just a company, it's an institution that should definitely be regulated. It enables the rapid dissemination of societally-impactful information that may or may not be true. There was plenty of fake information on facebook around the 2016 election that influenced uneducated/uncritical/unintelligent voters' opinions of the candidates. Having content curation guidelines that are informed by non-facebook entities almost certainly is needed, imo.

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> It enables the rapid dissemination of societally-impactful information that may or may not be true.

This is the exact reason why Russia blocked (or at least tried to) block Telegram, and why Facebook is banned in China.

They own the majority means of discourse and dissemination of information? Newpapers? Television networks? Come on. That's not even close to true.

Those other things you list...newspapers, television, networks...they all have a Facebook page and distribute their content through FB.

These traditional forms of media are scrambling for likes/comments just as much as the next influencer.

No business would fail if it didn't have a Facebook page. It's not necessary.

Now compare that with Google -- most businesses need to be listed on Google or they will lose significant amount of business. Facebook is nothing by comparison.

Being popular doesn't make something a monopoly.

>Being popular doesn't make something a monopoly.

No and you don’t need to be a monopoly to violate antitrust laws and engage in anti competitive behavior.

What percentage of the population can write for a newspaper or appear on TV?

When I say dissemination, I'm not just talking about elites. If the average Joe wanted to reach out asany people as they know and tell them something, tell me how they should do it?

You're doing a fine job right here. But Twitter seems to be a far better option than Facebook for that kind of scenario.

Fair point, looking at Facebook as a platform and product I think it has far greater impact than Twitter.

Average Joe has a facebook account with a network of friends. They do not have a twitter account let alone any followers (Facebook DAU: 1.5 billion; Twitter DAU: 126 million)

And before someone comes and says that I want to police free speech, no. Not at all. I simply want curation which means a set of processes that are followed for certain categories of speech, and the labeling of potential speech as incorrect or untrue. I don't want to lock anybody up for posting fake news (though wouldn't mind if they were banned)

Newspapers and Television networks have SUBSTANTIAL government regulation and oversight not present in Social Media. If you want to put Facebook on that level that those media types are competition, you need to accept that Facebook now gets greater FCC oversight.

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