Laws need to be updated to account for the network effects of the data lock position, where you, your data, and network are prevented from easily being mobile.

Your digital data should be considered to be equivalent to you having built a house, a big asset, but now you have a big choice to make: abandon it because the state is doing some sketchy things that you don't agree with or want to support by the taxes collected, or not.

The lack of data portability, mobility of users, is the only reason Facebook and its leadership could repeatedly be a bad actor and continue to scale as it did; by data portability I also mean that all data should also maintain cross-linking attribution, so if anyone in your network also leaves Facebook to join platform X instead - that data can be imported and aligned, synchronized properly on the other platform so it doesn't get broken. None of the incumbents are going to voluntarily to implement this.

Have you ever thought that the reason Facebook is successful is because people choose to use it? No one is forced to use social media.

Lol. Go and read Hooked book. The shitty things Silicon Valley does to keep users addicted to their social media apps would blow your mind. Facebook is a net negative to the society. The reason people are using their products are because they are addicted. Not because it's making their life bettter. It's like drugs. Atleast the drug companies have ethics to not give you some unless you continue paying money. Fucking Facebook want users scrolling their shitty feeds and clicking on notifications all day so that Zuckerberg and VCs can buy more yatchs.

And that could describe, alcohol, weed, sweets, gambling....

Yes, that why those things are either illegal or heavily regulated.

And games (video and irl), food, movies, books, podcasts, amusement parks.

You're essentially arguing for the regulation of anything that gives humans a dopamine hit. If social media is bad for changing their product so that people use it more then so is Doritos for doing the same so people eat more.

Sweets are heavily regulated?

It's heavily regulated by parents.

So now we need the government to treat us all like children who are incapable of making our own rational decisions?

People are sometimes capable of making rational decisions, but there's a whole industry (advertising, maybe you've heard of it) dedicated to working against that.

Think of really any common sense regulation:

- Can't use leaded gasoline

- Can't use asbestos

- Must wear a seat belt

- Cannot drive while intoxicated

If people always behaved well, we wouldn't need laws. They don't, so we do.

All of those cases cause external harm to other people. Logging into FB and posting memes doesn’t.

I’ve known people who have been harmed by logging into FB. Sometimes it’s the memes, comments, DMs, and disinformation that causes harm. Sometimes it’s Facebook running a social experiment without consent to see if they can alter users’ moods.

So now we are going to regulate every company that allows you to post memes and does A/B testing?

Are we going to have the “Ministry of Truth” to make sure that no direct messages don’t have anything false?

How can you say this seriously? Disinformation on FB had a huge impact on the 2016 election in the US.

So do we want a “Central Department of Truth” to regulate Facebook?

We don’t have to choose between Ayn Rand and George Orwell here. There are plenty of things FB can do to regulate the flow of information. A couple basic ideas are to apply the libel standard and to ensure the news feed isn’t full of hyperbolic echo chamber garbage. Stuff mainstream media outlets have been doing for decades, and has been effective.

I feel like you’re not discussing in good faith; please try and be sympathetic to the idea that Facebook’s pursuit of ad revenue has an outsized negative effect on our society. You act as though nothing is wrong and any regulation we apply would be completely illiberal. Neither is true.

Would you like every platform that allows users to post comment to be held liable for the content the user posts - including HN?

Again, no one's talking about holding platforms liable or establishing "Ministries of Truth". Maybe take it down a notch?

What I would like is for Facebook to gatekeep "news" posted on its platform. Traditional media does this, it's called "the editorial process" and is--while not perfect--super effective. I'm not saying you can't post life updates or hot takes, but I am saying they shouldn't be mixed with news that's been through the editorial process and held to journalistic standards by professionals.

I would also like people who run ads libeling people to be subject to civil lawsuits, and for that Facebook would need PII for people who run advertisements. I don't know if they already have it; if they do great. They then need to make it available when a court asks for it.

Yes. A government taking care of the citizens like parents do would be the best case scenario.

please tell me you are being sarcastic.

Alcohol, gambling and the like are heavily regulated.

Yes and because it’s heavily regulated in the case of alcohol and because the government is so effective, it’s impossible for people under 21 to get alcohol.

> Have you ever thought that the reason Facebook is successful is because people choose to use it?

Yes, I have thought that, before I knew any better. Now I know that Facebook became successful by making people think that other people wanted them to use Facebook.

E.g. http://www.krist0ph3r.com/2009/06/reminder-kristopher-invite...

Yup.. It's how trust is built, familiarizing you with a person or a thing - like a brand - by seeing or hearing about it enough times, automatically builds trust with it - digital advertising which organizations have taken advantage of this mechanism to shallowly in a very shallow, cheap way, manipulate people - tied into network effects that the internet as a platform allows to be scaled.

The article you linked to reminds me that Mark Zuckerberg's moral compass consists of:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks

It's particularly odd to me that he's quoted 'trust me' as if the concept of trust is foreign, non-existent,

And that’s basically advertising 101. I remember being taught that in a marketing class in graduate school back in 2001.

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-bandwagon-advertisi...

No, advertising 101 is vague lies like "America's favorite mascara". The more specific lie that "Kristopher invited you to use Facebook" takes it to a new level.

So let’s go with Mary Kay and Tupperware....

The equivalent is if a Tupperware salesperson tried to sell you tupperware by showing you a _doctored_ image of your friend buying tuperware while literally holding a sign saying "Hey [Your Name], buy this too!".

AFAIK invitations to Mary Kay and Tupperware parties are not lies. Your friend actually does want you to go.

I remember way back in the day my parents were invited to a “dinner party”. It wasn’t until they got their that they found out that it was a pitch to some MLM scheme like Mary Kay.

If your parents got to the "dinner party" and found that their friends hadn't actually invited them, but that the invitation was sent by the Mary Kay company without your parents' friends' knowledge, then I retract my claim. But I suspect it was your parents' friends being misleading on a small scale rather than a company lying on a large scale.

The entire idea behind MLzm schemes is to con your “friends” to get them to sell your goods.

>Antitrust laws were always based on supply side monopolies

I don't think this is true. The idea that antitrust is only about supply and consumer benefit is extremely limited view. It came in flavor in the US late-1970's and it's known as "Chicago School of Antitrust Law". The defining book of that school is Robert Bork's 'The Antitrust Paradox' (1978).

I wonder were there any historical precidents of antitrust actions taken specifically when there wasn't control over suppply either horizontally or vertically resulting in the end of the chain being unable to compete.

Not taking this as evidence of "it never existed" but genuinely wondering if there was ever an obscure bit of precedence by "pure quality".

Microsoft's privileging of Internet explorer and its were a closer example of just anti-competitive but they also had the overwhelming computer market share sold.

I don't recall of any cases where so much as a patent was revoked just because it lead to far more market dominance than expected from the limited time. Even when it utterly devestated entire industries like what cloth mills did to the literal cottage industry weavers.

I don't think where this is coming from, but you seem to imply that there is case now with FB.

I meant in more of a generic sense (as to where they were usually applied) than the specific definition of the law. Will definitely read the book if I can find it somewhere. Not based out of US, so might be difficult to find.

> If the mandate is to do what is best for customers, then the best solution I can think of is to let FB function as one entity but toughen the norms on data collection.

The data collection problem is basically independent of the antitrust problem. The only real overlap is that you can't avoid the data collection when the service is a monopoly you can't avoid doing business with, but the general solution -- more competition -- solves that anyway.

What's really needed is this:

> The other thing is Facebook should not inhibit any other social network trying to grow using FB's graph.

Adversarial interoperability shares the network effect. It lets competitors bootstrap off the incumbent instead of starting from scratch, so then you get more competitors.

Data collection becomes an anti trust issue because as you mentioned, you cant really opt out of the data collection part while continuing to use the service. Even a small social network is sort of a monopoly if all of your friends and family is on that network. That way, even the competitors wont solve the data collection part. I am assuming unless the rules are in place, every one would just keep collecting maximum data.

Adversarial interoperability also means there is incentive for both the incumbent and competitor to keep innovating to keep the audience there (and be mindful of newer ones emerging) and hence the best for the customer.

> Data collection becomes an anti trust issue because as you mentioned, you cant really opt out of the data collection part while continuing to use the service.

The point is that data collection is just problem #8345732473 on the great scroll of reasons why monopolies are bad. It doesn't cause the monopoly and it isn't a significant problem if you make the monopoly go away.

Nov 3 will decide a lot of stuff.

I would guess if Trump returns and the Dems take the House and the Senate, expect all nuance and smartness to go out the window.