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Comment by skeledrew | Hacker News Reader

Unless a user is paying money or otherwise in a legally binding contract that would be breached by a ban, I see no reason why a company shouldn't be able to ban them even on a whim. Having an account on a company's platform is a privilege, not a right.

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This might feel like a reasonable take in isolation, but if you take it in context of today's society, and how everything actually works, it's not reasonable or realistic. Nor is it empathetic in any way.

These social media companies have created an environment where they are the dominant, near-exclusive, medium for communication in our digital age. If you are running a consumer-facing business in 2026 you *must* be on these platforms.

Given that these companies have actively pursued these positions they now hold, do you not feel they have a responsibility to be fair, reliable and trustworthy? That they have some obligation to their users, paying or not. They are choosing to offer the service for free, and they do make money on you regardless.

Losing your business accounts on Meta or Tiktok or Youtube can have catastrophic real-world consequences. And mistakes happen all the time, so you can't realistically assume every ban or cancellation is justified or correct.

It’s hard to wrap up the past couple decades of tech building out their utility-like selves, showing how it breaks a heuristic of “it’s their business-just don’t use it”, so I’m impressed how well you’ve done it.

In any case it's the users who built these companies by using their platform. It's users who need to rally and migrate away in solidarity with those being banned or whatever it may be. I'd say expecting companies to not do whatever they consider is in their best interest is what's not reasonable nor realistic. A company exists to make money; if banning certain users advances that mandate then it's free and expected to. Again, unless there's some legal basis to counteract that decision.

> do you not feel they have a responsibility to be fair, reliable and trustworthy?

What an odd question. Of course not. You've built your business on their platform and you've (for lots of non-specific, general "you"'s) decided to cede your business to their whims. Plenty of businesses exist just fine with no social media presence and plenty of people are not too brain-rotted to find them.

But more to the point, I don't feel Meta has any responsibility to anyone. I feel the government in my country has a responsibility to regulate them and to levy devastating and potentially existential fines if they break those regulations. It's absurd to think these companies have any obligation to you (you in general, not you specifically) just because you can't figure out how to function without them.

> Having an account on a company's platform is a privilege, not a right.

Businesses can lose a lot traffic by not being present on Facebook and Instagram, so being unjustifiably banned is doing measurable financial harm in many cases.

Even as an individual it can be a huge pain to not have Facebook. The local individual sales market (e.g. classified ads) is dominated by Facebook Marketplace now, for example, and not having access to that market makes it difficult to sell things.

Meta has a responsibility to the community because of their position as the de facto platform for many activities. They've even intentionally positioned themselves to dominate. Having laws requiring them to act responsibly is totally justifiable.

Regulatory laws can always be made of course, but it's unrealistic to expect that Meta, or any other company, will do any more than is required to ensure they're turning a profit.

It's not Meta's - or any other company's - responsibility to care about the impact on users having or not having access to their platform, beyond how it affects them financially. What you're saying is that, because they're a huge company, they MUST - be forced to - allow access to anyone who might be somehow "disadvantaged" by not having access to their platform. I'd say that's ludicrous. The only responsibility Meta has is to the interests of its shareholders, which is primarily to grow their investment.

Then there's no reason why a government shouldn't regulate these companies, and use sanctions of all kinds - including fines, and the potential for an outright ban - to enforce those regulations.

Sure, a government is free to make/modify laws and regulations that apply to any entity within its jurisdiction.

From what I understand nothing in the EU regulation prevents a company from arbitrarily banning people. You can read it in full here: https://www.eu-digital-services-act.com/Digital_Services_Act.... It basically just establishes how the dispute should be handled between the parties

The user and Service are bound by their terms of service which is perfected into a contract by the valuable exchange of their eyeballs against advertising for the provision of the service in question. Valuable consideration does not have to mean "money". So, no, they don't get to ban people on a whim.

Let's see how far that rhetoric gets in a court.

That's not rhetoric. It's well established that consideration does not have to consist of money. A prime example of this was in Jacobsen v. Katzer where the exchange of source code was deemed valuable consideration for purposes of perfecting a license into an enforceable contract. You might want to consult an attorney or at least read up on the basics of contract law before continuing.

In what way is a case ruling that terms explicitly stated in a license are legally enforceable relevant to a company's terms of service which does not state in any way that users of its platform will always have access to said platform?

Jacobsen v. Katzer established that source code, i.e. something other than money, could be used as valuable consideration for perfecting a license into a contract. The terms of service you agree to when you join Facebook, Twitter, or what have you, similarly involves an exchange of non-monetary consideration for services rendered. Both user and service provider are in a legally-binding contract. If a service provider then bans a user for no reason, or any reason, they open themselves to litigation. None of this is controversial. I really do recommend you talk to somebody who's familiar with contract law before continuing.

> If a service provider then bans a user for no reason, or any reason, they open themselves to litigation.

And yet nothing came of it in probably the most visible case in recent history: Trump, president of the US, was banned by Facebook, Twitter in 2021. He sued, and nothing came of it, because the companies are private and it's perfectly fine for them to ban users as they see fit. He was unbanned 2 years later on the prerogative of the companies again, not because of legal proceedings.

There are essentially no cases out there where a company was forced to reverse a user ban. Unless it was regarding a breach of something explicitly in their terms or some other violation, but even those are extremely rare. Meanwhile there are numerous postings out there by people who got banned and are seeking some way to regain access, with success usually hinging on how much public support a given person can drum up for their case.

You should probably revise whatever sources you're getting your takes from, as they don't seem in line with reality.

- https://reason.org/commentary/social-media-companies-have-th... - https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/1rx4rv6/banned_fr... - https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/1moyxnm/my_facebo... - https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/1ser0cr/x_twitter_...

Then there should be a law that requires the platform to interoperate with independent clients. You can't have both. The social network is a common good. If you want to benefit from it, then you need to treat people fairly.

> The social network is a common good.

Not if it's managed by a company, in which case it's a means to turn a profit. A common good needs to be managed by the community to which it's providing said good, or by an entity that's legally bound to ensure it remains "good" for the community.

The whole rationale to giving companies a charter was to enable things that are good for the community. Just because it would be profitable to kill some people, for example, doesn't mean that companies can just do it (unless they are medical insurance companies in the US).

It's actually against the law in general to kill someone though. And without some reasonable form of enforcement, the charter thing is just for show.

this is such a low iq take. my whole point was that there should be a law for X, and now we're at "oh but there's a law for Y".

"Whims" skew discriminatory.

Enough of the real world interfaces with online services that arbitrary bans cause actual damages, more harm than banning an annoying player from your obscure MUD.

Disabled passengers who take a long time to load into rideshare vehicles are an example here where we want oversight on platform bans. Getting banned from both Uber & Lyft in the US with no recourse, even no human review, can disenfranchise.

i would support this if local/state/provincial/federal governments were not allowed to post exclusively on social media. other companies should also not be allowed to use social media as their only method of customer support.

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