Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by divided 1462 days ago
I’m interested in examples of where breaking a company’s rules has led to fines or imprisonment—particularly ones _enforced_ by the tech monopoly—that didn’t also involve breaking laws. Not talking about the flaws in technology (your example of misidentification for instance). You may just be making a separate point, but my response was in regards to the sentiment of its parent.

Your other comments I agree with, but the root cause isn’t government-like rules and enforcement; but rather government-like services being owned by broadly unregulated private entities.

1 comments

The closest at this time would be PayPal freezing/seizing accounts that are "in violation of the terms and conditions" - there are various stories around it.

A government is more than just the entity that can fine/imprison you.

Right, they can. Undoubtedly kicking someone off a private platform can cause them harm, sometimes significant harm. We agree there.

Where I disagree is the term goverment-like enforcement implies more than de-platforming. Seizing assets is closer, but banks and apartments and landlords have seized assets for hundreds (thousands?) of years. It would also be a stretch to call rules and enforcements of those rules by banks, apartments, and landlords government-like. These tech monopoly rules and enforcement don’t seem outside the norm for a private entity.

I don’t disagree that the scale of the companies present problems that need to be addressed. But businesses having rules and enforcing them are not problems alone.