[toss1]

Nonsense

Carriers do not have any staff monitoring the content being posted, nevermind the largest such staff in the world

Carriers do not have algorithms seeking out what content on what phone call creates the most 'engagement' (which is probably inversely correlated with truth value) and then actively interrupting your other calls to pushing that content into your stream. Again, nevermind that FB has the largest such feed-selecting algorithm on the planet.

Carriers do not select and push one news source over another, based on the level of times it gets mentioned on the calls.

These are all editorial functions, far more selective and influential than any newsroom editor.

The idea that they should be treated as carriers may have been originally true when the feeds were absolute literal timelines of items posted by 'friends' you selected, in strict chronological order.

But once they (FB, Twitter, etc.) started tracking "likes" and activity, and favoring one bit of content over another to surface and emphasize/de-emphazise in your feed, they became editors.

That point was decades ago, and it is time to stop treating them with that old trope. The fact that they fail at their fact checking is no reason to say that they shouldn't do it (and yes, if they would go back to strict chronological feeds fully selected by us, with no algorithmic prioritizing, I'd agree that we should again treat them as carriers).

They should not be able to have it both ways -- being the largest editors in the world = all the power, but treated as innocent carriers = none of the responsibility.

[timdev2]

Doesn't that basically round to "outlaw social media"?

[toss1]

I don't see how (although I might not object to some values of your quote).

It seems a straightforward choice:

1) Go forward as a Carrier and delete ALL features with a hint of editing, promotion, or recommendation, i.e., a simple straight chronological feed of other members' posts/feed specifically selected by each user, and maybe a search function.

2) Go forward as a Publisher and select, edit, recommend, promote, annotate etc. as much as they want.

With Option-1 they can avoid all responsibility for content, merely doing takedowns on items for which they get notices. With Option-2, they have the same responsibility of any publisher for their content (e.g., newspapers are still responsible for the 'Letters to The Editor' that they choose to publish, and I'm sure edit out profanities, etc.)

I expect that users would actually strongly prefer Option-1, although actual "engagement" numbers could decline, it might actually be a better advert platform.

It also seems that viral content would still exist, but be more 'natural', i.e., not enhanced by algorithms, since you Alan could see something from Bob and repost it, which would be seen by Chris, who is subscribed to Alan but not Bob, and Chris could repost it to be seen by Debbie, who subscribes to neither Alan nor Bob...

So, I'm curious how you see that this would this kill/outlaw social media?

[timdev2]

I think option 2 is a non-starter. If you're going have newspaper-like liability, I don't think anyone can afford to do that.

That leaves option 1. I suppose such a thing could exist, but it would be very different from social media as it exists. It sounds like a mash-up of twitter (accounts, follows, retweets) and 4chan (minimal moderation). Which would be interesting.

But you're still talking about basically making anything resembling current social media sites illegal.

You're also probably making any niche forum illegal too, unless it's niche enough that the operator can reasonably subject every post to prepublication review to try to avoid liability.

[toss1]

For sure, the same rapid-promotion algorithms would not be workable at scale if they were to run at current speeds.

But would it be so bad to have a system that is primarily unmolested by algos (i.e., mostly Opt-1) but with a slower algo that promotes more judiciously might make for a much less toxic SocMed environment?