[paintman252]

This is why massive companies like Meta and Alphabet needs to be nationalised. They simply have too much power over lives of billions.

This article is just another reminder of this. At scale that Meta operates, this algorithmically decided domain blockings mean nothing to them, but everything to hundred's of non-profits. There need to be legally mandated protections so things like this never happen again.

[indymike]

> This is why massive companies like Meta and Alphabet needs to be nationalised.

No. Giving this additional power to the government will not have the outcome you want. When something becomes too powerful, the solution is not to further concentrate that power into less accountable hands.

[jrochkind1]

> into less accountable hands.

While I'm not totally behind "nationalize all the things", do you really think the government is less accountable than Meta? (or Alphabet etc?)

I guess that raises the question "accountable to whom", but in general, for all it's problems with accountability (and there are many), and acknolwedging that different US governments can stack up differently (say local vs federal) -- I'd still say that the government is in general definitely more accountable to "society", or the population at large, than giant corporations are.

If I were king of the world, maybe I'd try having 1/3rd of board members appointed by government, 1/3rd elected by users, 1/3rd elected by employees. Oh, right, there's stockholders too I guess... ok, 1/4th all around. I know this is only my utopian fantasy.

[wpietri]

If you haven't noticed, we're living in an era of rising authoritarianism: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2022/global-ex...

Companies are held accountable via market pressure, public relations pressure, investor pressure, and government/regulatory pressure. Governments, just via voters. Given that authoritarians of various stripes are working hard to neutralize or delegitimize voting and election results, yes, I think that giving Facebook to governments that are or may soon become authoritarian is absolutely at risk of reducing total accountability.

[jrochkind1]

What a world, where we're arguing about which unaccountable abusive gigantic entity we'd rather be abused by.

I still find it shocking to think that Meta is more accountable (to society?) than government. It seems to be arguing over how low the bar can be, since Meta has very very little accountability. Like, as in the thread we are actually on, they can decide to ruin someone else's business with no notice or consequences or even acknowledgement there's any reason they ought not to. "Market pressure" and "investor pressure" don't seem to be doing much good in accountability to society, do they?

And you mention "government pressure" as something making them accountable to society right after arguing that government is less accountable than Meta is without government control, which seems odd.

[wpietri]

> I still find it shocking to think that Meta is more accountable (to society?) than government.

That is not something I said. I'm not even sure it's quantifiable enough to say "more" or "less", as the kinds and mechanisms of accountability are so different.

> arguing that government is less accountable than Meta

I did not say that either. My point is that an authoritarian government nationalizing Facebook is even worse in accountability terms that either one on its own.

> "Market pressure" and "investor pressure" don't seem to be doing much good in accountability to society, do they?

I think your baseline is off. The social media platforms have made huge strides since their early days. Could they do more? Yes. Could they be worse? Incredibly so.

[jrochkind1]

That was what the original comment I was replying to said, "less accountable hands". I replied mainly to question that. Then you disagreed with me, I guess I misunderstood about what you were disagreeing with me, sorry.

[soundnote]

A lot of modern censorship is a mix of algorithms, and government pressuring corporations to take actions the government wants to do but legally cannot (eg. due to 1A concerns). There are huge swathes of society (mostly those who'd also be concerned with eg. "rising authoritarianism") who cheer political censorship and want more and more of it. See how eg. the press reacted to the possibility of Elon buying Twitter and saying he wants to decrease freedom of speech? They took it as an act of war.

[bliteben]

government is via consent which literally includes all the other things you mentioned

[indymike]

> While I'm not totally behind "nationalize all the things", do you really think the government is less accountable than Meta? (or Alphabet etc?)

Yes. Absolutely, and without any qualification whatsoever and in every jurisdiction at every level.

Government enjoys sovereign immunity, qualified immunity, direct statutory immunity (laws that prevent suing the government) and operates the forum where they are held to account (be it a regulator or a court). It is very difficult to sue the government, and even more difficult to mount a campaign to change a law in a non-corrupt country. This applies to a tiny sanitation district,

Private companies are easily sued, regulated, and if their behavior is bad enough, reputation damage alone suffices to hold them to account.

[kjkjadksj]

Your last sentence is not true for facebook and other companies that operate at such scale. Good luck mounting a successful lawsuit against their legal team. Good luck getting their sheep users to jump ship given they haven't already after countless events that harmed their reputation. Good luck passing pro consumer regulation when industry is allowed to lobby, fund political advertisements, and donate money to campaigns.

[indymike]

> Your last sentence is not true for facebook and other companies that operate at such scale.

You are doing a good job of calling them out here. Last I looked, Meta's stock has taken a beating this year, to the point that their largest shareholder has lost roughly half of his wealth. Facebook's loss of users is having a huge effect.

> Good luck passing pro consumer regulation when industry is allowed to lobby, fund political advertisements, and donate money to campaigns.

Yes, getting the government to do anything is very hard, especially when they own a company or a service. You'd have to do all of the same things you have to do to regulate a private business, but with limited rights for redress. Government can incarcerate, take your property or kill you if they want to silence you. Meta can only shut off your account.

[rmah]

Why would you risk everything to start a company only to be forced to give up most of it to other people? Why would others invest (i.e. buy stock) in your company only to give up control to non-owners?

[jrochkind1]

That's a different question than talking about "less accountable hands" but yes that would have to be figured out in any hypothetical utopian system.

The employees work for a paycheck of course, but I suppose there needs to be sufficient incentive to start a company. It probably doesn't need to be multi-billion-dollar payout possible to incentivize though. And talking about an already existing company like facebook, I think founders and early investors have already received quite enough reward to incentivize, being able to make as much money as they've made off meta up to this point is plenty of incentive to start a company.

(There are also other incentives than money to start a company).

Anyway, I was mostly responding to the suggestion that the government is "less accountable hands" than Meta -- I really don't think so, if we're talking about accountability to society at large. I think it's actually a problem that an entity with so much power over society isn't accountable to it; the first step is admitting we have a problem.

[polygamous_bat]

The founders and the employees are still being paid for their hard work building it up; it's not like a hostile government takeover where Mark Zuckerberg is woken up in his bed one night and asked by some men in uniform to hand over the keys to Facebook.

[rmah]

Actually, that's exactly what it's like.

[wpietri]

Wait, so you're saying most entrepreneurs aren't creating new things just to change the world, to make a difference, to put a dent in the universe, to fulfill a deep vision, and/or because their team or their userbase is like a family? I find it hard to believe that VCs, would-be billionaires, and their extensive PR teams have been lying to us all these years.

[pb7]

Your snark lands flat because knowing that you will lose control of your company at an arbitrary point affects every single of one of those points listed. How will I fulfill my vision if the government will take over when it finally gains traction? Government isn't known for their execution. Well, only one type.

[wpietri]

You do realize that most VC-funded entrepreneurs "lose control" of their companies already, right?

[Dylan16807]

My hypothetical company can always not go for a billion dollars of revenue, which makes those issues irrelevant even if we assume the worst possible handling.

[unity1001]

> No. Giving this additional power to the government will not have the outcome you want.

Giving more power to the government on INFRASTRUCTURE at this scale always gives the desired outcome everywhere arount the world except the US.

I stressed the word infrastructure. Because at this level, these companies are literally the gatekeepers of the Internet. Who control literally 70%-80% of what we see, hear and do among themselves. Especially when doing business as a small business, there is no way to avoid them. And they can make or break their business within a day with their arbitrary decisions.

Imagine that your local road network was owned by a private, unaccountable company that was able to change the traffic flow within one day at a whim. Literally breaking all the logistics of your small shop by causing it to be much more expensive. Or your local power company doing the same thing.

To avoid such things, we keep infrastructure in the hands of public companies or we VERY tightly regulate them. Allowing a society's infrastructure to be controlled by private actors is as crazy as it gets.

[piaste]

> less accountable

Governments are always more accountable than private companies, because the only way an ordinary citizen can force a private entity to cease its abuse is... through the government. (No, "voting with your wallet" isn't a thing, especially when the abuse is profitable.)

[holoduke]

Maybe the service itself will be crap once run by governments. But at least things are covered by law. things like fair hearings and proper customer support. Now you can be banned from those ecosystems just like they do in dictorial states.

[djschnei]

ummmm, have you seen our criminal justice system?

[barbariangrunge]

Can ordinary citizens without millions of dollars even access the basic torte system against somebody bigger than themselves? The legal system is effectively unavailable to most citizens outside of small claims court because of the combination of precedent (ie, the need to spend a million dollars researching to know what the law is), and the stalling/creating expensive burdens tactics etc

[Bud]

I'm especially entertained by this notion that making a company government-owned will magically ensure "proper customer support".

That might be the funniest thing I've read in weeks, actually.

[holoduke]

Have you ever dealt with business support from Google? If you can get support at all, it's basically bots and auto replies. Even the worst state in the US has better support than Google or any other big software company out there.

[Bud]

I certainly was not claiming that Google has good support. I'm aware of basic reality. ;) But your response does not address my point at all.

[kyleyeats]

It might be the only way to make Facebook worse.

[psychoslave]

Nationalization is not necessary more concentration and less many accountable hands.

Well, it depends on the governance obviously. If you talk some autocratic regime, where the king proclaimed "I am the state", that fits your description for sure.

On the other hand, if you are looking at a direct democracy regime, you could hardly make the power more pervasive, and every citizen has to carry its part of accountability on every social matter.

[indymike]

> Well, it depends on the governance obviously.

Three reasons why nationalization is a bad idea:

* Power disparity. As it is, Facebook is destroying people and business without any accountability. Now we hand that to the state who:

* Has all the incentive to destroy anything that competes, and the government has the ultimate way to do it: just outlaw the competition. If you think the product is bad today, imagine how fantastic it will be in 10 years of no competition.

* Has all the incentive to make people use it. So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy!

All in all, nationalization of a social network is one of the worst directions we can take, regardless of politics. It's just a bad idea.

[polygamous_bat]

> the government has the ultimate way to do it: just outlaw the competition

> So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy

These things can only fly in a non functioning democracy, which, while the US is coming dangerously close to, is not there yet.

[indymike]

> These things can only fly in a non functioning democracy, which, while the US is coming dangerously close to, is not there yet.

Most functioning democracies outlaw competing with the postal service - as the US has for centuries.

[DangitBobby]

> Has all the incentive to make people use it. So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy!

Any examples of this? The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright.

[indymike]

> The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright.

Last I looked UPS and Fedex are legally barred from competing for letter postage and can only ship parcels (so the hack is the overnight envelope which packages your letter in a parcel.

Bonus: The postal service can arrest you and prosecute you. Last I looked, UPS and FedEx cannot.

[DangitBobby]

Last I checked, UPS and FedEx literally (ab)use USPS as cheap last-mile delivery service which it is obligated to fulfill (at a loss). And they _certainly_ can and do deliver letters. They just don't often (and not to mailboxes, which are reserved for USPS), because people aren't willing to pay for it under normal circumstances. Despite these things... UPS and FedEx seem to do pretty good business, don't they? Remind me of the problem?

And uh... I can count on 0 hands the number of times I've heard of the USPS arresting anyone. Bet you can too.

The USPS is a bit of an anomaly in that its responsibilities are carved out in the constitution! Still interested to hear of other real world examples.

[orwin]

It's because our nationalization used to ressemble the Soviet model, for various reasons (one that governments were far more authoritarian in the 40s, 50s and 60s that they are now).

You have other options. One is the following:

- 1/3 government (adapted to the size of the business: federal for Facebook, but local for a sawmill)

- 1/3 workers (including the owner if he's working his business)

- 1/3 investors (owner or shareholders).

That would makes the owner who also work at the company the final decision maker for stuff that doesn't involve the government (like investment), but allows more balanced power balance.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Don't nationalise them, break them up. A state monopoly is preferable to a private monopoly, but in this case there's no reason we have to have a monopoly. Facebook and Google do too many things.

[paintman252]

>Facebook and Google do too many things.

Google? Definitely. Meta? Not really. All Meta has is two social networks and one messaging service. They haven't really experienced huge success in anything else. They MAY hit big in VR/AR space, but that's yet to be determined.

[WastingMyTime89]

> All Meta has is two social networks and one messaging service.

And a payment service, an ad platform, a marketplace, a VR R&D company, I never used them but I guess they also have a line of business services centred on social network communication, I’m probably forgetting plenty of things.

[capableweb]

Facebook is approaching 100 acquisitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

Feels like a lot and not just three entities.

Additionally, Facebook primarily does acquisitions as a form of hiring, according to Mark Zuckerberg himself. They buy the company so they can get the employees to come and work at Facebook.

[paintman252]

Sure, they OWN a bunch of stuff, but (besides Facebook/Instagram/Whatsup) none of it is a massive success.

It's not like Google which has 1)Search 2)YouTube 3)Maps 4)Android 5)Chrome 6)Gmail 7)Analytics just from top of my head

[capableweb]

Oculus VR, Giphy, Mapillary and more are also successful in their space.

Just like Google's successes, the "successes" are actually built by others (almost all you list were acquisitions), but the difference (as mentioned before) is that Google sometimes acquire products for the product itself, while Facebook generally doesn't.

[xphos]

They still would definitely met the standard of a monopsony if not a monopoly. Its scary that an enormous number of people start and stop the information searching at google or those two social networks. I think its an oversimplification to say that just breaking them will solve the issue but they definitely handle a governmental level of power in terms of social after effects, which is why nation states target them for fake news.

[lotsofpulp]

Which market are they a monopsony (only one buyer) in?

[eppp]

On one hand you say they are so important they need to be nationalized and on the other you dismiss them as almost a couple of trivial apps. Which one is it?

[sgc]

Just social networking services? Modern social interactions revolve around them. Social networks are incredibly important and should be treated as such.

[bilekas]

Just did a check to see their subsidiaries and they actually have way more than I expected :

https://inspirationfeed.com/what-companies-does-facebook-own...

[unity1001]

> All Meta has is two social networks and one messaging service.

They literally dominate the social network landscape along with Twitter. They can literally set public agenda. That's too much power.

[londons_explore]

Communications platforms naturally become a monopoly. The biggest platform is the most useful one because you can talk to most people on it, so people prefer to join the biggest platform and it gets bigger.

[ydlr]

That is easily fixed with legislation. We now have multiple phone companies that all interoperate. No reason we can't require the same from our many facebooks.

[causi]

Oh, for the days when you got banned from one website and you just went to a different website.

[londons_explore]

Nationalisation wouldn't fix it.

There are plenty of rules and procedures in every nation which screw over random 'little guys'... For example, "oh, you have a disability and can't work? Here, have some state support. Oh - we just found you helped look after your neighbours children once. That counts as work. Therefore you lied to us. Thats fraud. All your state support will now be withdrawn."

[warbeforepeace]

Look how well the US government handled the small business loans during covid. It wasn't the small businesses really getting them.

[Xeoncross]

I know sub-optimal government is the default solution to all issues, but man, they are terrible with the monopolies they do control like healthcare, public education and infrastructure.

[invalidusernam3]

I don't think nationalisation is the answer, imagine the additional layer of bureaucracy dealing with a government entity. Large companies like Facebook need to be regulated by the government, there needs to be laws in place for stuff like this.

[WastingMyTime89]

The European Union finally did it with the Digital Market Act. The law enforces access to market place and interoperability between messaging platforms. I’m surprised we don’t hear much about it here.

My guess is that American companies like to pretend it doesn’t matter in case it gave idea to US customers and silently fight it in courts in Europe.

[rrwo]

> This is why massive companies like Meta and Alphabet needs to be nationalised.

Nationalised by what country? US? UK? France? Russia? Saudi Arabia? India? China?

Would we have country-specific and isolated social media and search engines?

Even in nominally free western countries, do you really want the government controlling what can be in a search engine or posted on social media?

[is_true]

Would you be ok with the chinese or argentinian government running Alphabet or Meta?

I don't think most government are better than any corporation.

[psychoslave]

Last time I checked, free access to education, care and protection against many abuses where provided by governmental organisms.

"government are better than any corporation" (or its reverse) means nothing if you don’t provide some specific topics and possible metrics to evaluate them.

Also, not all government and corporations behaves in the very same way.

[is_true]

Sorry, don't have time to show you that most governments do shitty things to people all the time.

[yamtaddle]

Nah. Just make providing free services then blatantly fucking people over who rely on them a very risky thing to do. Like "attractive nuisance" laws that can make you liable if some kid you've never seen before drowns in a pool on your property if you didn't take reasonable measures to keep a kid from wandering into the pool. Or various regulations that make certain demands on businesses that open up physical spaces to the public (like stores or malls or whatever).

Separately I'd also like to see us outlaw the kind of data collection & retention that lets Facebook's business model exist, but I do think making it so offering free services doesn't absolve you of all responsibility is something we should do, too, and is more directly relevant to this.

[onion2k]

There need to be legally mandated protections so things like this never happen again.

Such protection for websites would be an implicit protection for Meta's de facto monopoly on text-based social media. What needs to happen is for these sorts of bans to still happen, but for the public to understand the impact of those bans and move away from a single website for all their social media needs if they want to see posts from everyone.

Competition in the space would fix the problem. It'd mean the impact of a ban is massively diminished, and that companies are incentivized not to issue unwarranted bans because their users would go somewhere else.

While both users and advertisers have no real choice where to go Meta will hold on to their monopoly.

[bachmeier]

Paul Romer has offered a proposal: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/nobel-laureate-paul-romer-ho...

[laundermaf]

You’re placing way too much trust in the government, the same agency held hostage by a private company that forbid them to automatically calculate the taxes owed by its citizens.

Plus why what the government do with a social network? They’d still need to moderate it — at atrocious prices at that.

[stall84]

I'd be in favor of trust-busting them into smaller entities before nationalization .. While nationalization might work for smaller western European countries, it isn't going to work in a political machine the size of the united states

[ceejayoz]

I haven't seen much information on how the GDPR's Article 22 right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated means is going in these scenarios. I hear a lot about other provisions, but Article 22 seems like an important experiment.

[smileysteve]

So the government, for and by the people can have a money drain that is used for disinformation and cyber bullying?

Just delete Facebook, it's not worth it.