[iammisc]

This is technically true but de facto not. It's like arguing that Ukraine controls Crimea because legally (according to themselves and others) they do.

In my experience when this argument is made, I typically follow it up by "well if it's so unimportant, why don't you delete your account?". 99/100 times I've asked this in real life the person responds by saying, "well I don't have anywhere else to say things" (this is during covid).

For the past two years, social media is the only public square allowed by government fiat. Thus it must be regulated as such.

[Dracophoenix]

I think you're putting the cart before horse with your conclusion. The reason that Facebook has been one of the only freely available discussion zone for the majority of the world isn't because of government, but in spite of it. The government didn't "allow" Facebook as though there is some permission system involved for setting up social media sites. The government is an unable to disallow it by the constitutional limits set by the 1st Amendment.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Somehow I don't think the 1st Amendment protects a corporation's right to track and monitor its users for profit, even when they're not using the corporation's site/app. Or to fine-tune its algorithms to support behaviour modification.

Without the promises made on behalf of FB's tracking tech and the behavioural feedback loops they farm, the social features are basically worthless.

FB's problem isn't a 1st Amendment issue. It's the fact that it lies about the effectiveness of its ad tech to its advertisers, while also attempting to hide the toxicity of its behaviour mod techniques.

And there are too many parts of the world where it has monopoly status on both.

[iammisc]

> The government didn't "allow" Facebook as though there is some permission system involved for setting up social media sites

And that's completely irrelevant to my argument which is that, since Facebook is the only public square by government fiat, it ought to be treated as such regardless of how it got there.

When government exercises eminent domain for the public interest, it does not worry about why it is the house it is seizing was placed there. It just notes that the house is there and then takes proper action to secure it's future aims for public benefit.

[jboy55]

Facebook is not the 'only' public square. Please, that's hyperbole, its not even close. Twitter, ticktok, reddit, snap and this very site are all public squares, with tremendous reach. Most of the video content on FB/Instagram come from TikTok, and in case you forgot the previous admin tried to shut them down because users on it organized against them.

[hairofadog]

> since Facebook is the only public square by government fiat

What?

[lelandfe]

…so by the same logic, as COVID wanes and actual real-life public squares exist again, Facebook won’t need to be regulated?

[iammisc]

Is covid waning? Many states have multiple restrictions still on gathering in public and in private.

[lelandfe]

I suppose I could have said "when" in that future tense sentence, but it definitely will wane at some point from it's current intensity.

[iammisc]

Twenty years from now is when I expect the last of the covid restrictions to be lifted, if ever.