Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua G
thing is, telecoms are utilities, so they cant censor their traffic. but internet websites are entitled to control the content on their own websites, including user submitted.
in your view we should view successful social media sites as utilities & they should be regulated by the government not to control the content of user submitted data. this would have dangerous ramifications where a private entity running any website allowing user submissions cannot censor lies, libels, etc.
with the matter of a browser, or a google search engine censoring, its a private market. there are other browsers. there are other search engines. the market can choose, or create, alternatives to censorship, & the liberal media.
ATT is a utlity but a website is not, & should not be, no matter how much market power they command. the market is free to be disrupted at anytime.
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I think the way twitter is structured is closer to a utility than a traditional website... they just provide infrastructure for others to post on... I could for example setup
https://twitter.com/WojsRants and there would be zero confusion that I'm in any way associated with twitter, or that twitter approves what I post... not unlike if I buy a domain name wojsrants.com, everyone knows that ICANN just provides infrastructure, and is not in any way associated with what I put on the website...
what makes a telephone company a utility? What if it turns out that there are more tweets each day than sms messages / phone calls? What if in 20 years, no one uses a phone/sms anymore, and everyone starts tweeting instead? at what point does a communication medium become a "utility"?
I would think when politicians, presidential candidates, etc use it to get their message across to the voters, it's pretty damn close to a utlity, if not there already? What if for example twitter decided that they don't like Hillary and won't let her have a twitter account? She would be at a disadvantage during elections, but by logic some in this thread have brought up, it would be perfectly ok for twitter to do so...