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Comment by Pharmakon | Hacker News Reader

Having the biggest audience and being monopolistic are not the same thing.

Heinz Ketchup is the utterly dominant brand of ketchup in America by an order of magnitude. They sell more ketchup than every other brand combined in the U.S. and it is not a monopoly. Every attempt to make some new upstart ketchup has failed, and generations are totally sold on just Heinz with a degree of brand loyalty FB would kill to get... and yet they are not a monopoly nor has it been seriously alleged that they are.

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Right, because it's extremely easy to find other brands that are effective in the same way. A social network's purpose and efficacy is directly related to the number of users in that network. Not at all analogous

Not about an analogy, it’s just illustrating the point that market share and monopoly are not synonyms. As to a social network being effective in direct proportion to the number of users, it would really depend on what you want to use it for. Eternal September theory certainly shoots down the general case of your claim though.

Never claimed they were.

"it would really depend on what you want to use it for" It was my understanding that social media platforms were for connecting with people and sharing content/ideas with them.

If you're trying to rebut my claim, you're going to have to actually do it, not point to something else and claim that it does.

What claim is there to rebut?

A 15 second google shows the top social media sites based off monthly active users. Tell me an equivalent, viable platform to rival Facebook/Instagram that doesn't share the same political values.

I’m not seeing a claim there, and what you did bring up (marketshare) I’ve responded to. If you want an alternative to mainstream social media, they exist and aren’t as popular, but since we’ve agreed that popularity isn’t monopolistic... who cares?

The 1990's notion of "monopoly" is as outdated as farmers owning the sky above their farms. The power in media in 2019 comes from the combination of virality/discovery+monetization. A small number of people controlling virality/discovery+monetization can seek to effectively control all speech that matters and seek to control public thought. Doling out virality/discovery+monetization on an ideological basis, contrary to the wishes of large numbers of people in public basically nullifies meaningful Free Speech in 2019.

Nobody's stopping these "large numbers of people" from swapping URLs.

They may get stopped from having their message show up in the "recommended videos" column on YouTube, and that's fine. Nobody has a right to be in that column.

(When the man said "The revolution will not be televised?" This is what he was talking about. ;) )

Nobody's stopping these "large numbers of people" from swapping URLs.

In 2019, you might as well restrict those guilty of wrongthink to standing on soapboxes and distributing pamphlets. Everyone you don't like will be restricted to the technology of 20 years ago.

(When the man said "The revolution will not be televised?" This is what he was talking about. ;) )

Basically, in 2019, if you don't have virality+monetization, you don't have the franchise.

In 2019, you might as well restrict those guilty of wrongthink to standing on soapboxes and distributing pamphlets.

Putting aside the hysterical Orwellian reference, the world would be a better place if everyone from ISIS to Nazis had to go back to shouting on street corners. This implicit argument you keep making about parity of amplification being equival not to free speech is ludicrous. Given how often people in this thread alone have confronted you on the issues with it, and the cagey nature of your responses it’s increasingly difficult to assume you make this argument in good faith.

You can believe that people are owed a Youtube channel and a Facebook page, but at least recognize that no law or principle in law supports that belief.

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