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Comment by andmarios | Hacker News Reader

I am not fond of suggestions to break up big companies, but I do believe that FAANG should be treated as utility companies and not be allowed to deny service to anyone; any termination decision should be left to an independent 3rd party, ideally a public authority, so the big company will not be liable for any account misconduct.

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Hello from the UK, where we lock people up for jokes! Public authorities are just as corruptible.

For jokes and for carrying deadly assault spoons. AFAICT, it looks to be sporting aftermarket tacticool rust. ;)

https://www.foxnews.com/world/british-police-station-mocked-...

The spoon might be the most extreme part of that picture, but I wouldn't blink at seeing 90% of those in a kitchen - how are brits supposed to cut meat?

It's hard to keep track because they keep encroaching on knife ownership.

It's illegal to sell a knife to someone under 18! As a Canadian, I owned a half dozen pocket knives by the time I was 10, and took them camping and so forth.

It's illegal for an adult to carry a knife without good reason! I carry one on me all the time, because I often need one.

It blows my mind how far down the authoritarian rabbit hole they're going, rather than addressing the root causes of violence.

https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives

At least if a US public authority decided to suspend his husband's account, he could issue a FOIA request to get the documentation explaining why it happened. If the FOIA is rejected for national security reasons, that'll be explicit. Public records laws and regulations don't apply to a big company like Google, so they can stonewall you forever and not have to explain what their policies are or how they were enforced.

Public authorities are at least theoretically accountable to the public, unlike a billion-dollar megacorp which isn't accountable to any force on this planet.

OK. And when the public authority is the one that issues the gag order to the company, which is what usually happening in these stonewall cases, then what?

Currently the companies never explain their decisions, so we cannot know if there was a gag order.

A public authority is required to reply to requests unless there is explicitly a gag order. Of course the reply may be _the account is disabled as part of ongoing criminal investigation_ but again, once everything's done they will be required to disclose information.

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