Aaron Sorkin: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg | Hacker News Reader

Aaron Sorkin: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg

nytimes.com

33 pointspseudolus18 comments

> If I’d known you felt that way, I’d have had the Winklevoss twins invent Facebook.

That made me chuckle!

Why should we hold Facebook to a different standard than the postal service? No, you put mail in, they deliver it. What about broadcast TV? You buy the time, they air it.

ninja edit: AOC's big "gotcha" was "can I use facebook to show ads that say that XYZ republican supported the green new deal". Well. Yes. She should. Just like she should using the mail to deliver that message, or broadcast TV. Let the republican respond. Let the republican sue AOC. The carrier of the ad shouldn't be held responsible, that would be on AOC.

TV networks can and do reject putting on ads that violate a certain threshold of misinformation. As for mail, that's closer to private chat than broadcasted ads so I don't think that's super relevant. They're not talking about censoring people's FB messages.

TV networks - at least the ones using public airwaves in the US - can not reject political ads, as a consequence of FCC regulations.

Why is this myth still repeated? TV networks are forced to air misinformation by law: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/should-tv-stations-ban-fal...

This movement to get social media to enforce misinformation is a new one. It might be the right thing to do, but it's drastically different than the status quo.

You're confusing political ads with adverts from political candidates. Your link specifically notes the difference, TV stations won't censor adverts from candidates but will from super PACs. So glassing over that difference is a bit of a red flag, since the super PAC ads are exactly what's at issue on facebook.

I guess I'm still one outrage behind when CNN and Warren were complaining about the Trump Biden ads (which was technically a candidate ad).

First. I don't want Facebook to be forced by the government to fact check its political ads, but I still think it's the right thing to do. Allowing the free dissemination of lies isn't a virtue. They may not have a legal obligation to do something, but I think there is a moral obligation.

Also the USPS is a government body and for the most part mail is confidential. Facebook is a private company and the ads on its platform are public facing.

Several reasons:

1. The Postal Service was established by an Act of Congress pursuant to explicit Constitutional authorization. Facebook wasn't even imagined by the Founders.

2. Facebook is a broadcast medium. Postal mail is 1:1. Very different behaviors, models, and outcomes follow.

3. The Postal Service is not a for-profit enterprise. Facebook is, and therefore has different motives, among other things.

I'll ask the opposite question: Why should Facebook be treated as a common carrier? It's not as though there aren't vast numbers of other, open, "free" methods to communicate with people over the Internet (e.g., email). Usually we designate entities as common carriers where having competition would have detrimental effects (e.g., railroads).

Ads are sort of also 1:1, in the sense that you have to pay for them to be shown, and the number of impressions is proportional to the price. You could argue USPS is more expensive in this regard, but they'd be quite happy to accept your election ads and stuff them into my mailbox, for a fee. In fact, they do this pretty much all the time, and political candidates, at least where I live, don't put a single word of truth about their opponent on the leaflets.

There are regulations on political advertising[1]. They do not currently apply to online advertising. They should[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Election_Campaign_Act

[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/198...

> Why should we hold Facebook to a different standard than the postal service?

That's maybe not the right standard to call out. Every postal service ever has a rich history of allowing mail to be intercepted for intelligence purposes, USPS included. USPS has also been retaining scanned images of the exterior of mail since 2001.

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