[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