Comment on Sex-ed content creators discuss shadowbanning and censorship on Meta platforms
runefehay@kbin.social 2 months agoAnd in the early days of the telephone, switchboard operators would listen in on conversations and cut off anyone they didn't like. Then in civilized countries, they required phone companies to be common carriers and required police to get warrants if there was anything illegal suspected, to listen in on someone.
Similar thing with the postal service.
Adalast@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yup, as I mentioned in my other response to Mr. Strawman that is the difference between a private corporation and a utility. Utilities ARE subject to the first and fourth amendment protections because they are a strange hybrid between public and private.
runefehay@kbin.social 2 months ago
Yes, but Meta/Facebook is essentially positioning itself as a monopolistic utility by buying out all its smaller competitors and leveraging itself as one of the few players in the market. There are a lot of people, who if you want to talk to them or see what they have to say, you have to get a Facebook account. This includes politicians and small businesses.
Adalast@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Eh, its more of an oligopolistic cohort, but yeah. There is a strong argument to be made to classify all communication technology broadly as a utility under the telecom umbrella. That way it can cover all past and future technologies.