Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

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This is an interesting discussion with many different opinions debating where first amendment lines are drawn. Personally, I am not sure what makes regulation of social media companies any different from regulation of utilities. Your electric company cannot cut off your power and deplatform you because of what you're posting online. Why should a social media provider, who is ultimately a dumb conduit for the public town square like any other telecom service, be able to do so? We regularly regulate companies for all sorts of purposes. For example, businesses are forced to not discriminate between customers based on certain protected traits. That is also a form of controlling the speech of companies but we don't call it out as a first amendment violation. Why not just treat political opinion as a protected trait as well?

But leaving the 'technical' aspects of the debate aside, the Florida law ultimately protects the free speech of individuals which makes me think it is preferable to protecting the free speech of the companies. This is especially true when the companies are incredibly huge and influential, with more users than most countries. They are effectively governments when it comes to their ability to shut down speech, and we've seen their power in action when they banned Trump in unison. That kind of power should have limitations - the same limitations we place on our government's ability to control speech.

> Why should a social media provider, who is ultimately a dumb conduit for the public town square like any other telecom service, be able to do so?

Do you think that Hacker News is really a "dumb conduit" for the public town square? Or how about your internal company Slack or message board? Review comments on your local retailer's website? Your local newspaper's comments section? These are all examples that would absolutely be classified as social media per Florida's law (modulo size requirements). If you're going to argue they're not social media, then what is the basis for drawing the distinction?

The problem with the law is--especially as the commentary of the legislators and De Santis make clear--it's really about punishing Facebook and Twitter, and not about protecting users at all. Indeed, if you followed the actual hearing itself, the state effectively tried to defend the absurdities of the law by basically saying that the only sane way to interpret it is that the only way for Facebook et al to violate the law is to not follow their own defined policies.

> Why should a social media provider, who is ultimately a dumb conduit for the public town square like any other telecom service, be able to do so?

I think you're begging the question here. It's not clear they're conduits - they're arguably at one end of the conduit. They arguably abut the town square (the internet at large), but that's not the same as being the town square.

> Why not just treat political opinion as a protected trait as well?

Lots of reasons. If you think about it for a minute or two, you can probably think of several.

> They are effectively governments when it comes to their ability to shut down speech

You mean "their ability to shut down speech on their own property, and nowhere else", which is different. So, yes, they're effectively governments on their own turf, much like the owner of a popular bar. Even if the bar is the the de-facto "town square" of some isolated hamlet where the townsfolk routinely gather to discuss the issues of the day.

If Facebook drops you, you go to any of ten thousand alternative social media sites.

If your electric company drops you, you don't go to any social media sites, because the power is off and there's nobody else.

Utilities are regulated because they're the only option. It's impractical to build alternatives because of the limited space for infrastructure. Often, in fact, local governments helped build that "last mile" infrastructure in the first place.

Facebook is the largest social media site, but there are tons of others. You aren't being literally frozen out if they decide not to serve you. Go meet your friends on some other site.

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