Yes, the FAANGs are very close to being public utilities, and therefore deserve a special treatment.
However, for the sake of discussion, I'll start out with the fact that a privately owned website is not an example of shared public infrastructure. Think water, electricity and other basic staples of civilization... Facebook is not an example of that.
And don't worry soon enough Amazon themselves will insert themselves between you and 911 https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/modernizing-911-to...
Edit: I would like to point out my original parent comment that started all of this was in the context of FAANGs not just Google/Facebook
Fair enough. I'm sure I use some web sites that are hosted on AWS, I did not consider that.
> Same with Facebook and their trackers, unless you block them.
That may be (though I block at least some of them), but that's hardly equivalent. I don't depend in any way on Facebook tracking me. If they stopped, I would certainly not suffer from it.
I use online messaging and online communication more than I use the telephone network.
To me, and many others, these online platforms are as or more essential than the phone system, which is already covered by common carrier laws.
That's why your local grocery store can ban you even if food is necessary for your survival, because you didn't lose access to other sources (stores).
That's your choice, you don't have to use any particular online messaging service. My cousins communicate over steam more than over SMS, that doesn't mean steam is a utility.
I think that these large communication platforms absolutely resemble other large communication platforms that are currently covered by common carrier laws.
Specifically, a lot of the functionality that these platforms provides, fulfills a usecase that is similar to the phone network.
And the phone network is both a large communication platform, and is all covered by common carrier laws.
The laws need to be updated to recognize that many of the online communication platforms are now as important as the phone system, and therefore should be covered by our existing common carrier laws.
If my phone company decides who I can call, then I got issues. I can't trivially change carrier however I want.
If a website arbitrarily bans all kind of people it will soon be their own problem as people leave with a single click.
More specifically, I do not need linkedin, Facebook and co at all to communicate with people over the internet, stuff like P2P software never went away.
> If a website arbitrarily bans all kind of people it will soon be their own problem as people leave with a single click.
False. I use facebook for communicating with people more often than I use the phone network.
Being banned from facebook would have a much larger effect on me, and many others, than being banned from ever making phone calls again, due to the fact that we use facebook for the vast majority of our online communication.
Because the law doesn't protect convenience in these contexts.
As in it would be much more difficult to replace Facebook as a communication platform for me than it would be for me to be banned from making phone calls ever again.
So facebook is more in the category of "can not replace" than being able to make phone calls.
If I ask you to meet me at the bar and you're banned from the bar I've selected, it's not the bar's problem.
I am saying that the problems of getting kicked off of a facebook are larger than that of getting kicked off of the communication utility that is phone calls.
And this is due to things like network effect.
And these issues and prevention that make it difficult for people to switch is larger on facebook than it is for phone calls.
So the "physical prevention" is larger for facebook than it is for phone calls.
Not being able to use the phone cuts you of from a lot of services where no option exists.
Nah, it really doesn't when compared to something like getting banned from facebook.
I make way more video calls with people than I make phone calls. And probably around 50% of my communication is done over FB message.
It would be way less of a problem to get banned from making phone calls for me and for many other people.
They have nothing in common except the "communication" label.
> Specifically, a lot of the functionality that these platforms provides, fulfills a usecase that is similar to the phone network
They don't. The "phone network" is what provides access to the internet, a website is not a phone company, it sits at a higher level of abstraction. That's like saying a popular TV show is a broadcast network because everyone watches that show.
> online communication platforms are now as important as the phone system
That's not true. If the top 10 most popular websites on the internet disappeared overnight there would still be many thousands of ways to communicate over the internet.
Sure they do. They have usecases in common.
There are many ways that I communicate with people, online, that has now entirely replaced me calling those people up on the phone.
That is how they are similar. They are similar in that online services are, in many cases, direct or indirect substitutes for the same exact usecase.
> They don't
They absolutely do. The shared functionality is that I no longer use phone companies anymore, and I instead use online services for that same exact content.
> That's not true.
It absolutely is true. To explain what I mean, I would say that I would truly rather be banned from the entire phone network than to be banned from something like facebook.
This is because I legitimately use facebook for communication more often than I use phones. Therefore, being banned from facebook would have a larger impact on my life than being banned from ever making a phone call again.
That is how facebook is more important than the phone network.
It is more important in that being banned from facebook would have a larger effect on my life than being banned from make phone calls ever again, due to the fact that I use facebook much much more for communication.
If you use Facebook as your primary communication platform I can see how getting banned from Facebook would be very inconvenient, unfortunately, the fact that you would rely on Facebook in such a manner doesn't change the reality that Facebook is just one website, while a phone network is fundamental infrastructure that underpins internet connectivity. For the vast majority of Facebook users losing access to the phone network would mean losing access to not just Facebook, but everything on the internet. You might have grown accustomed to thinking of Facebook as something more than just a website, but that conception is simply wrong, the idea that Facebook is comparable to the network that Facebook runs on is categorically incorrect.
It is the reality of the situation that a whole lot of people rely on facebook in such a manner, and because of the network effect they would be unable to convince all of their friends and family to switch to other platforms.
One person cannot defeat platform locking and network effects.
> while a phone network is fundamental infrastructure
Not really. It would be easier for me to never call someone's phone number again, than to get rid of other communication platforms that I use.
You're just wrong. The overwhelming majority of people use a variety of communication services like e-mail, imessage/sms and many others, and this is common knowledge, people who only use Facebook for communication are frankly extremely rare.
I am saying that they rely on it more for communication than they do on phone calls.
I communicate with people much more over Facebook than I do through actual phone calls, and it would be less of a problem to be banned from ever making phone calls again than it would be to be banned from facebook.
Nobody is talking about phone calls and you know it. It doesn't matter that you use Facebook more than anything else, it doesn't change what Facebook actually is. If you use discord or slack to do most of your communicating that doesn't mean they become utilities, that's just your personal preference.
Literally I was the one to bring up this example in the very beginning. It was my example, that I chose at the start. So yes, that is relevant.
The fact of the matter is, that me being banned from ever making phone calls again would absolutely be a larger problem for me, and many other people, than if we were banned from using facebook.
> It doesn't matter that you use Facebook more than anything else
Of course it does. It is a point of comparison, so as to show that it would be a bigger problem to be banned from facebook than it would be to be banned from making phone calls.
> that's just your personal preference.
I can assure you that there are many people for whom it would be a bigger problem to be banned from facebook than to be banned from making phone calls.
It's not relevant because you're ignoring the fact that "the phone network" doesn't primarily mean "phone calls" it primarily means "internet access".
> The fact of the matter is, that me being banned from ever making phone calls again would absolutely be a larger problem for me
Yes, you keep repeating that over and over again (3 times in this response) but what you don't seem to understand is that nobody is forcing you to rely exclusively on a single website for all your communications, that is a self-imposed restriction that isn't meaningful when trying to decide if a website meets the definition of a utility.
That does not change the fact that it would be a bigger problem for me to be banned from facebook than it would be for me to be banned from making phone calls, lol.
So when you say this "nobody is forcing you", you are ignoring the fact that they would be forcing a problem on me that would be larger than if I were banned from making phone calls.
So yes. They would be forcing an issue on me that would be larger than if they banned me from making phone calls.
> ignoring the fact that "the phone network"
Phone systems have fallen under utilities laws since before the internet existed. Therefore the analogy to phone calls is relevant.
You can look at home phone line systems. A home phone lines, that gives zero internet access, still falls under utilities laws.
Are you aware that a landline, that gives zero internet access, would still have to follow utilities laws? Just want to make sure you are aware of that.
> meets the definition of a utility
A perfectly reasonable thing to do is compare it to how much a problem it would be to switch from a different utility.
A landline, that has no internet access, is a utility. It falls under utilities laws, even if the singular only thing that it does, is make phone calls, without any internet access. Phone calls, without internet, is a utility.
And switching away from the system that only allows you to make phone calls, and has no internet, and is therefore a utility, would be easier than switching away from facebook.
If I decide Facebook and all it's products are trash I can pretty trivially not use any of them. If I dislike all social media I can choose not to engage with it at all. I would have a much harder time going without electricity or water.
Social media feels somewhere between a public commons and print media, and it's acting more and more like print media all the time. I'm seeing this election the banning of certain sources like the New York Post and the editorialization of what people say with friendly links to approved "non-partisan fact checkers" who are essentially opinion columnists that cite more sources.
Netflix is about as close to a public utility as the local movie theatre, which is to say, nowhere close.