[moss2]

Another idea would be legislature. Have these online public spaces serve under the same laws as real-life public spaces (museums, parks et cetera).

If a town banned you from the train station because you refuse to give them your phone number, that would open them up to being sued. That should absolutely apply to Discord, Google Mail and Amazon AWS.

[TuringNYC]

>> If a town banned you from the train station because you refuse to give them your phone number, that would open them up to being sued.

Nice example you gave, because this literally happened between 2002 and 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List The No Fly List eventually swelled to close to a million people. There was no one entity you could sue, because airlines had their own algorithms for matching, so even if you werent on the list, but the algo fuzzy-matched you, you were effectively on the list. Matching names is notoriously bad. There was an ACLU lawsuit, but it was a much bigger effort than anything being described on this thread.

In summary: lawsuits against Government systems are slow and not necessarily something to aspire to as a better system.

[toofy]

yeah, the fundamental problem doesn’t seem to be a result of government or companies as we’re seeing this happening with both. governments and as we’re seeing, across the board with companies.

there is a different fundamental problem at play.

[moss2]

Good point, thank you for sharing.

[anoonmoose]

That should absolutely not apply to Discord, Google Mail, or Amazon AWS, because those are all private companies restricting the use of their private property. You may call them "public spaces" or "public services" but that is an abuse of the word "public".

[somenameforme]

Private vs public all comes down to the interests of society, it's not religious dogma. Prior to the 60s it was perfectly legal to refuse to serve somebody because of their race or religion. The courts decided this was not in the public interest, and so that changed. Some time before that it was private companies used to also be able to fire anybody seeking to unionize. Then that changed. There is even precedent where private land used in a public way subjects the owner to the same standards as those of the government. [1]

The current situation is pretty goofy. We've hyper centralized speech into a tiny handful of outlets, with those outlets increasingly recklessly operating with exactly 0 accountability to anybody, in spite of the dramatic and undeniable consequences of their actions are having on both individuals and society at large. IMO the one and only reason this hasn't been dealt with is because we're going through a brief phase of dystopia. Governments seems more interested in trying to myopically exploit the centralization speech to their own benefit, instead of actually thinking of the longterm, to say nothing of making society a better place.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

[abduhl]

Small point: the courts didn’t decide this in the 1960s, the legislature did with the Civil Rights Act. The courts enforced it. The courts don’t (shouldn’t) determine what is in the public’s interest, the legislature (aka the people) does.

[ncmncm]

Sometimes do, sometimes don't.

It all depends on politics. Some people have opinions on how much court "activism" should be allowed, but they reliably flip the script when one of their pet topics shows up.

People used to insist Antonin Scalia was a sort of "strict constructionist", himself among them. But the moment he got a case where he had a personal opinion that contradicted his "strict" claims, his true colors came out. Then it turned out his strictness really did just mean corporations always win and individuals always lose, as his record had always suggested and his critics had long asserted.

(Never guessed I would have cause to miss him... He was not, anyway, Bork.)

[kemiller]

They are but that’s precisely the problem. More and more of our vital communication channels are owned by single private entities. IOW public discourse is being replaced by “public” discourse. The promise of blockchain solutions is that they can return us to the status quo ante of the internet where there were open protocols that operated in a decentralized way. Whether it can fulfill that promise, I don’t know. But there’s also plenty of precedent for regulating how the private owners of public goods (such as rail and telephone networks, or even sidewalks) must behave.

[qzx_pierri]

The internet is not real life. It seems a lot of people who hold your opinion are in the 18-24 age range. Those people who grew up thinking the internet is the only way to communicate or “make things happen”. But I assure you these private companies do NOT have to let you use their services, and common excuses such as “Online communication is like a public square!” is not rooted in the desire for free speech, but is rooted in the desire for instant gratification.

Yes it’s easier to gain a following online, but throughout MOST of history, people started these movements/conversation offline. Don’t let these companies trick you into thinking you don’t have a voice, or power, without voicing your thoughts on their “platforms”. You have a voice, and you can use it. You’ll just have to get out the house and start talking to people face to face.

Edit: I didn't mean to establish a condescending tone with the second sentence - I was simply making an observation.

[horsawlarway]

I'm 33. I think you're wrong.

I suspect you're older - imagine the US without a public highway system. Imagine every highway is private. Imagine what arbitrary bans from those highways would do to impact how you live. Talk to me about how well we should communicate face to face in that situation?

Idea not that appealing? That's what you're advocating for today.

A complete loss of a highway system that has no public replacement. By the way - those "18-24 age range" are all being forced to help pay for those "private highways" with their tax dollars anyways, in the form of govt subsidies to private cable companies.

Should we discount the ability to still communicate face to face? Nope. Damn well shouldn't.

Does that make this ok? Nope, Damn well doesn't.

[qzx_pierri]

> I suspect you're older

No, I'm younger than you.

> Imagine every highway is private. Imagine what arbitrary bans from those highways would do to impact how you live. Talk to me about how well we should communicate face to face in that situation

First off, this is a flawed argument because my taxes don't pay for the servers running Discord or other similar services.

Also, your response is proving my point. I said in my original comment that your entire argument is based on the desire for instant gratification through through the use of private services that can boost your voice/reach online - These are private services, and you are not entitled to them at all.

I understand you want faster results (in a time where you can go online), but it's still very possible to get results face to face - That was my response. This is a fact that doesn't lean on any quasi-moral bulwarks to manipulate the conversation.

Your example ignores the fact that you can get anywhere using public roads instead of highways - Which would take more time, but are still very functional. This reinforces my original point. Additionally, beginning your response with made up scenarios is generally a low quality way to frame an argument to your liking, but I'll give you a pass on that.

> Does that make this ok? Nope, Damn well doesn't

Says who? You aren't entitled to any private service. Mind you, you're the one using words like "shouldn't" that don't fall under any moral authority other than the owner of the platform itself.

[horsawlarway]

You keep assuming that "private" means they are not accountable to the general public, and that they are (fantastically) standing alone without leaning on the resources that all of us are providing.

And that's simply a complete mistruth (I'd call it delusional - in the case of tech companies). They might be private companies, but they cannot (literally - full stop, without room for debate) exist without the infrastructure that we are providing them.

From the roads that they use to provision their datacenters with equipment, to the power we generate with power plants under government supervision, to the police/lawyers/judges that ensure their property rights, to the firefighters who deal with their emergencies. To the cable companies that we subsidize to provide them internet, and connect them to their customers. To the trash we collect from them, the water we provide, the clean air their employees breath.

I don't understand how you keep missing this point. "Private" does not mean self-sufficient, and it is an insufficient standard to claim that being "private" means you have carte-blanch control of how you operate.

This is why we have regulations over all sorts of industries. Do you think private companies are free to ignore accessibility laws? Or that they can violate discrimination laws? Or that they enter into any contract, regardless of the clauses?

Basically - "Ownership" is only a concept that exists BECAUSE we enforce it. There is no such thing as "ownership" without the participation of all of us in this make believe game.

---

So in this case - it's complicated. I think in general I don't mind private companies being allowed to remove users from their platforms, but I think it matters quite a bit what sort of impact that has on the user, and what sort of actions provoked that removal.

Should a store be allowed to remove a jewish person because they are jewish? Nope - damn well shouldn't.

Should a store be allowed to remove a jewish person who is breaking shit and making a mess? Sure.

Should discord be able to ban malicious users spamming other customers? Sure

Should discord be able to ban a user because they changed email addresses? Probably not.

Intent and actions of both parties MATTER.

And simply claiming that it's "Cost efficient" to not deal with problems that are trivial to a company, but utterly life changing to an individual (such as loss to a primary communication channel) is not acceptable. It's cost efficient for the company, and debilitating to the individual - they are harmed immensely so the company can save pennies.

We've long had established law around unequal bargaining power (it's where roughly all of our labor laws come from...) and it's been a concept for literal centuries.

So I'm inclined to say this on the matter:

Just because they currently "can" remove a user for this, doesn't mean that - ethically - we should allow that practice to continue.

It just means our laws are woefully out of date for this application, and technological progress is outpacing political progress.

Edit: Basically - I'm claiming complete and utter rubbish on this

> First off, this is a flawed argument because my taxes don't pay for the servers running Discord or other similar services.

Our taxes DAMN WELL DO pay for discord to be able to run their servers. We pay with our taxes, our time, sometimes our lives - so that the environment in which discord runs their servers can exist at all. Just because discord happen to be paying the costs for the servers themselves is almost immaterial. Society is an organism. We are all part of a whole.

[vel0city]

In your example of the highways though, Facebook and Discord aren't the highways. They're the private clubs you take the highways to. The highways are the telecom companies, the ones where you're incredibly limited on which ones will service your area, where you realistically don't have multiple choices.

Discord isn't the only group chat platform on the internet. WhatsApp isn't the only text message service out there. As long as you can get on the internet, the highway, you can drive to another club. You can use Matrix. You can use Mastodon. You can use tons of other services out there.

[ncmncm]

The people you need to communicate with are not on Matrix or Mastodon.

"Private" clubs and golf courses banning only Jewish and black people are not allowed anymore, for reasons.

[ehutch79]

A private company didn't 'build' the highways. (yes i'm sure a private company laid the asphalt, but at the direction of the government)

[TakeBlaster16]

https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_et_al_Disinterm...

Most couples now meet online. Good luck convincing them all the internet is not real life. And those stats are from 2017. Given a few years of lockdown the trend has surely accelerated.

Discord is how a lot of young people talk these days. If you're banned from Discord, it's not very comforting to hear "you don't need Discord son, in my day we didn't have Discord and we wrote to our pen pals. I'm sure you'll make some new friends."

[qzx_pierri]

> it's not very comforting to hear "you don't need Discord son, in my day we didn't have Discord and we wrote to our pen pals. I'm sure you'll make some new friends."

>it's not very comforting

That's the problem. Your comfort doesn't matter. If you want comfort, go buy a hammock. If you want to boss companies around with overreaching regulations, then get into politics.

The fact is, companies can do what they want (within existing regulations). "They should" or "They shouldn't" arguments are outside of both of our control.

[vel0city]

Lets use your example of a dating app. Lets say someone makes a Catholic-focused dating app. People make their bio state "Mary was a prostitute! Jesus is a lie!" What should the platform do?

[TakeBlaster16]

The platform should ban the user, with an explanation written by a human being explaining what rule they broke. And no, "our shiny new machine learning algorithm flagged your account" doesn't cut it. Arbitration should be an option. I could write a lot more, but hopefully you get the idea.

[conradfr]

Losing my gmail account would have way more effect on my "real life" than if I had suddenly no letter box.

Why can't it be regulated? Phone is and it's provided by private companies. The law even allows me to port my number between them.

[qzx_pierri]

> Losing my gmail account would have way more effect on my "real life" than if I had suddenly no letter box

Yes, due to your own lack of contingency planning.

I respect your intentions, but government regulation is not always the answer. At some point, we have to admit that we are far too reliant on these services (that many luddites refuse to use, and live a normal life).

My second sentence is true as of now, but maybe things could change in the future. However, I only base my arguments on present circumstances.

I do agree that some of these companies need to at least offer some sort of human support team or call center available to serve users that were falsely banned or randomly booted. However, forcing the hand of these companies is not only unfair, but pretty entitled.

Gmail is a free service.

[achenatx]

you absolutely shouldnt rely on a single email provider. Instead own a domain and use that domain to forward to whatever email provider is most convenient.

[conradfr]

I can, and actually have <my-name>.com, but you can't expect the general population to do the same.

[kemiller]

For the record, I'm 46. I clearly remember what it was like before, during, and after the internet revolution and I've seen how things have changed. I actually partially agree with you that part of the solution may be to simply stop relying on these new media quite so much and rediscover more analog ways of relating to one another, and I actually see signs of a movement to do just that (among young people!) but that doesn't change that they are very useful and here to stay, and for better or worse a vital part of how we relate to people near and far.

Consider the postal service — imagine if you could permanently lose the right to send things in the mail at the whim of an unaccountable customer service rep in the USPS. No trial, no recourse. Unthinkable. I suspect you CAN be banned if, e.g. you commit mail fraud or send something hazardous, but only after you're convicted with due process. That's the part that's missing. You can argue that the USPS is a government-owned entity and thus different rules apply... but again, that's the point. The carrier of last resort, at least, should be run in a way that is accountable, whether technically government or not.

[mistermann]

> The internet is not real life.

Ok, if the internet is not "real" life, then what is it?

Is it "in" reality? Do we interact with it? Does it interact with us, or within the ineffable, largely unseen soup of causality from which how things are/become in this world emerges? Does anything matter?

[sriram_malhar]

No, it isn't always about social media, or free speech, or 18-24 year olds.

An NGO I consult for runs its entire business on Google. All its documents are on Google docs, all digital assets on google drive, using google play store for their mobile app, using firebase on the backend ....

They work on children's education, and have lots of photos of children attending their workshops. My biggest fear is that Google AI will identify some photo as objectionable and shut the entire operation down in a hurry. Without recourse.

[qzx_pierri]

> An NGO I consult for runs its entire business on Google. All its documents are on Google docs, all digital assets on google drive, using google play store for their mobile app, using firebase on the backend

Sounds like an egregious lack of contingency planning. This situation is the fault of the engineer who stood up their infra. Your argument wouldn't exist if there were a Plan B and Plan C in place.

Do you believe it's fair that your client's lack of preparation is somehow grounds for overreaching government regulation?

[rini17]

Good luck trying to convince an resource-strapped nonprofit to implement contingency plan for this.

No government regulation means existence of these will for all practical purposes depend on Google's whim. I don't see any other viable option, you do? can you elaborate?

[ruined]

the internet is, unfortunately, real life

[qzx_pierri]

I acknowledge your feeling that the internet is real life, and I respect your opinion, but I have to disagree. I'll repost part of a comment I made 5 months ago because I think it's very relevant:

"Don't forget that everything you see online is a facade. 15+ years ago, I fell in love with the internet because it's somewhere I could go to be something that I'm not. I could be LOUD, or I could say things I would normally never say away from the keyboard, and I think everyone bonded together online with this fact in mind. The internet was an escape.

Soon, people began to view the internet as a reality due to the rapid homogenization into 3-4 major websites which are controlled mostly by advertisers. But what I've noticed is that most of the opinions you read online aren't very honest.

Commenters on reddit will grift in the comment section for upvotes. Some commenters on HN will purposely avoid certain topics because their account is tied to their reputation in certain very partisan circles in California. Both of these examples are often the loudest and MOST SEEN (or unseen...) replies due to the low effort alignment with the popular opinion at the time.

Although the internet seems more real everyday, I truly believe it's never been further from reality. No one is truly able to say what they want due to the (seemingly) dire consequences of saying "F*ck it" and stating your true opinion (which isn't all the time, but the option no longer exists). And this even applies in the short term. If you aren't banned, you're downvoted (HN, reddit, Lobste.rs, every website with a comment section...) or filtered by an algorithm tuned to keep corporate sponsors and advertisers happy (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube)."

[falcolas]

Many government functions (unemployment, DMV appointment scheduling, etc) can not be accessed from any place but the internet. It's one reason that Public Libraries are so important these days.

That our government requires you to use the internet puts lie to the idea that you can live a complete life without the internet.

[tsukikage]

> most of the opinions you read online aren't very honest

IME it is exactly the opposite. People are more honest and open with their opinions on the internet; in real life, they are more likely to stay quiet or lie where they feel their interlocutors may not be accepting if their true thoughts were to be expressed.

[temp_account_32]

They pretty much are de facto public services. The town square is now digital, and the laws have failed to adapt. Just because some big corporation owns it doesn't make it different in practice. Do you really want to defend a future where you can be banned from doing anything because some random $BIGCORP's algorithm decides so on a whim?

[anoonmoose]

Yes, I want that future, because their right to restrict service is the same right to restrict service that I personally have, and diminishing their rights diminishes my rights.

If you want government-run services that act as public versions of these services, advocate for that. But I don't support this particular method of socializing private businesses.

[falcolas]

You can keep a private/public company as a company while still restricting some of its activities via laws. This is reality for every company in existence.

There's even precedence when a private company is a de-facto public space (and must follow the governments' mandates on public spaces) in the physical world; extending this to the digital world makes sense.

[ekianjo]

Or you know, you could choose to use decentralized services just like we used IRC back in the days. Dont blame the platform when the users created their own problems in the first place.

[coldtea]

>That should absolutely not apply to Discord, Google Mail, or Amazon AWS, because those are all private companies restricting the use of their private property.

That's not some law of physics. Just a man made law that game them those "use of their private proverty" rights (or rather, rich and powerful people lobbied and bought legislation, and got them for themselves).

We can take them back. And we can also stop treating them as legal "persons" while we're at it.

>You may call them "public spaces" or "public services" but that is an abuse of the word "public".

Public in the legal sense is just what we deem public in the legal sense.

As for public in the dictionary sense, that's irrelevant here.

Besides, after offering a service used by millions, that's basically a public service (I mean in the dictionary sense: directed at a mass public) - and even legal scholars have argued that they function as a kind of public utility (and could/should be regulated as such).

If we're to take it even further, then it's also a historical fact that all countries, including the USA, have nationalized companies (made some private companies public the same way public libraries are, either entirely or in part - e.g. having the state be shareholders of large part of them). So it's not like it's some unprecedent thing.

https://thenextsystem.org/history-of-nationalization-in-the-....

[bambax]

This is incredibly short-sighted.

Just because a company is "private" doesn't mean they can do anything (manufacturing illegal goods, selling things that are harmful, not hire a certain category of people, etc.) We could add to the list of illegal behaviors the fact of denying service without justification and recourse.

Secondly, when those companies confiscate our accounts, they deprive us of what we had stored there (emails, messages, etc.), which should be considered stealing, even if they don't directly profit from the steal.

But most importantly, the size of these companies make them akin to utilities; while not impossible, it's incredibly difficult to operate in today's world without a Gmail account, or in certain circles without access to Instagram, Facebook, Discord, etc.

Given the impact to someone's life to be deprived of such access, the decision should not be left to companies, "private" or not, but supervised public authorities.

In France, the fact, for a professional, of refusing to sell something for no reason is punishable by up to three years in prison[0]. (If the victim sues, the reasons for not selling have to be presented to the judge, who then decides if they're valid or not.) I don't think this has ever been used against a FAANG but it would be a very interesting test.

[0] https://www.economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf/Publications/Vie-pratiqu...

[anoonmoose]

If the US wants "email as a utility" then they can build and fund it themselves. I wouldn't even complain about proposals for the US Government to buy Google- I am a demsoc, after all. But I do think that half-measures like forcing private organizations to operate under the same rules as private ones are a "worst of both worlds" proposition.

[MichaelCollins]

The entire premise of limited liability corporations is a creation of government; these are artificial entities, not people, they have privileges not rights. Every single right you might think a corporation has is a privilege, not a right, and can be taken away. They don't even have the right to exist at all.

[anoonmoose]

I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not sure that current SCOTUS precedent agrees with you, and that's the framework I'm working under.

[MichaelCollins]

> I'm not sure that current SCOTUS precedent agrees with you,

I know it doesn't, but that doesn't change anything I said. All of the privileges corporations enjoy are negotiable and can be revoked by that which created them in the first place: governments.

[wang_li]

Your argument was lost a hundred years ago or more. There are many regulations on businesses. On their speech, on their pricing, on the products, on hiring practices. The list is quite large.

AT&T can't restrict who can use their network to make phone calls based on the political views or the content of the call. Why should Google, Facebook, or Twitter? Especially when special liability exemptions were made without which they likely wouldn't even be in business.

[anoonmoose]

I mean the simple answer is that I think AT&T should be able to restrict their network based on those criteria. If the people of the US don't like that, they should vote to either build out equal infrastructure to replicate that functionality publicly, or vote to buy out AT&T's infrastructure.

[wang_li]

Or we can cancel all their easements, remove their right to run fiber and copper over public lands, and not renew their radio spectrum leases. These networks exist because the public gave them privileges in order to build the networks. Without those privileges they wouldn't exist.

Plus we could make them civilly and criminally liable for every bit of fraud, defamation, child porn, copyright violation, and etc. that involves their network.

[anoonmoose]

I'm fine with everything in the first paragraph.

[JohnHaugeland]

Fortunately, in a great many ways, that just isn't how this country works.

[teeray]

We don’t have the same standard in place for physical private companies. If Walmart started issuing lifetime bans to people because they didn’t fill out the customer survey on the receipt, they would be well within their rights by the same argument. It would also probably not be tolerated by society, because it impacts food security for those people where Walmart is the only grocery store around.

[anoonmoose]

I am fine with Walmart issuing those bans, as is within their rights, because the correct mechanism to respond to that would be for it to be "not tolerated by society", aka, the market will respond.

[teeray]

> the market will respond

Maybe they roll a D20 if you don't fill out the survey and if you roll a 1, you're banned for life (what can I say, they make up the rules for bans). Would the almighty free market really build another grocery store for that 5% of banned people? No... they would go hungry.

[macspoofing]

>That should absolutely not apply to Discord, Google Mail, or Amazon AWS, because those are all private companies restricting the use of their private property.

We don't live in a libertarian utopia where private property is not regulated. If you're a store-owner, for example, there are some things you simply cannot do or must allow. In California, for example, a private space, like a mall, has to allow constitutionally protected speech[1].

You can regulate platforms to allow for, say, free speech rights.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...

"under the California Constitution, individuals may peacefully exercise their right to free speech in parts of private shopping centers regularly held open to the public, subject to reasonable regulations adopted by the shopping centers"

[anoonmoose]

When quoting from the Pruneyard Wikipedia article, I would suggest you include "In refusing to follow Pruneyard, the state supreme courts of New York and Wisconsin both attacked it as an unprincipled and whimsical decision", and not just the parts you like.

[macspoofing]

>and not just the parts you like.

I made no judgment on the decision. The decision itself is periphery to my argument, namely that governments are perfectly capable regulating speech on platforms ... because they already are in many many other domains.

[unloco]

This is a horrible way of thinking. It's always good that "the others" are getting banned with no recourse, up until the point that YOU get banned with no recourse.

I know, because it happened to me, and it will happen to you, too. Eventually, you'll have a "hot take" on a topic against the hive mind of whatever media you use, and you're done.

If media companies allow public access to their services, they MUST become public spaces, and/or public services. TOS be damned.

If they want to restrict users when they sign up (just an example) "you must be liberal or conservative," fine. They are preemptively limiting their customers to certain conversations. But if they allow everyone in, you cannot mute one set of people.

[CodeWriter23]

I’m here to tell you in all probability, the “public” bus you ride every day is owned by a private company.

[anoonmoose]

The bus is owned by a private company, but they're being contracted by the government. It's still public.

If the USG were to approve a publicly-funded centralized chat program and contracted that work out to Discord, I would support/approve subjecting them to the rules people are suggesting here. But that hasn't happened and most likely will not happen.

[yamtaddle]

When you invite the public in, it's public. Maybe not quite the same way as a city park, but it's not wholly private either. That's both obvious in a common-sense way, and part of the law. It's just not really been applied to the Internet yet.

[tsukikage]

They can’t have it both ways. Either they should not be able to be selective about who they serve, or they should not be able to hide behind the figleaf of “we are just an indiscriminate carrier and not really responsible when our users use our services for illegal things” to avoid having to build sufficient support and moderation infrastructure to do the job properly and provide recourse when mistakes are made.

[moss2]

What I wrote was a political opinion. How I think things should be, not a description of what they are. I absolutely think private companies should be restricted in their use of their private property.

[ChoGGi]

Hate to break it to you, but Facebook is the biggest public square in the world.

[anoonmoose]

Sure, as long as you acknowledge you're not using any legal definition of the word "public". You're not really even using any dictionary definition of the word "public".

[ChoGGi]

Deal :)

[mdrzn]

This feels like the only way to move forward.

I can't wait for EU to propose something similar to fix these kind of issues, or a minimum level of customer service per every thousand users.

[bewaretheirs]

For many services, I think the right model would be analogous to how landlord-tenant relationships are regulated -- with significant constraints on how and when services can be terminated once they've started.

This should be the case even if the tenant isn't paying cash for services.

[ekianjo]

> Have these online public spaces serve under the same laws as real-life public spaces (museums, parks et cetera).

That will inevitably lead to more government spying at the end of the day. No thanks.

[slim]

what's your reasoning?

[ekianjo]

Government implements regulations about public discourse then eventually goes on to decide what is considered OK to publish and acts as a censor in the end. Since these become now effectively government driven platforms you lose the possibility of alternatives.

[Cameri]

This could be done using code without the need for a central authority.