Should FB resume its banning of sexually explicit, beheading, animal torture, and ISIS videos when it is a "utility"? And how will the product of FB change as a utility? In what sense is FB a utility other than a very common place people like to go to, like concerts or a sports stadium or something?
What is actually meant when we say "regulate technology companies built around communication as a utility"? How large before you become one? Is any app that has chat or public posting a utility now? What classifies? Is the only goal to make them dumb pipes? What other roles and responsibilities would the government hoist onto FB and require it do?
As soon as we can start suing them for the content they provide the sooner they will find resolution to it.
The same way they will get sued if they censor content that might be deemed socially important.
The NYT isn't a public utility nor a public broadcaster. I'm curious what you think would happen to the New York Times if they were to get sued in your imaginary hypothetical?
Editors can and have been jailed. They are ultimately personally responsible for what the paper published.
https://archives.cjr.org/opening_shot/opening_shot_july_augu...
And in any case, a publisher is different than a utility or a platform. Social media users are already punished for publishing illegal content (libel, copyright violations, etc). How does making Facebook a "utility" change that?
Same as newspaper vs postal service.
Only block content that is illegal, and do it on demand - so back to the days when the services like facebook were just a content aggregator, where filtering and curation was done by user, not for user.