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Comment by trhway | Hacker News Reader

>The platforms today are so large, it surely can seem like being cut off from society in general, like a human right is being revoked.

probably similar to say imagine Bell's denying a landline in 197x because of your speech.

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I believe that would be illegal because phone companies are “common carriers”? Not sure if that was true in the 70s.

The implication being that private companies (Google, Facebook, etc.) now fill the role that common carriers did a few decades ago, and that, curiously, they enjoy many of the privileges usually allotted to common carriers (eg. can't be prosecuted for content passing through their networks) without the responsibilities.

Isn’t that fact quickly changing with laws like SESTA? I feel like tech companies have been at forever war against not being afforded common carrier protections in a way phone companies were not, and I wonder if that regulatory uncertainty has led to self-policing & hedging

There are a bunch of these in society that are interesting and very deserving of more public discussion, including that one (broadly communication access).

Given the importance to work and life of having access to the wireless networks today, owned by AT&T, Verizon etc., should they be allowed to blanket deny you access to them as a customer (assuming you can pay)? Especially given the wireless carriers are essentially a group monopoly (spectrum limitations).

Or how we take away voting rights for felons, until a certain amount of time after they've been released, or in some states permanently (unless altered by a court order or governor's action). Something like 1 in 40 American adults can't vote right now because of that. It revokes the ability to participate in a critical democratic function.

I'd expect an increasingly large societal debate about the context of the platforms and what their rights are when it comes to restricting access. Whether they increasingly get treated as public utilities and if the FCC sets down guidelines/rules for them to comply with on access restriction. That overall conversation probably accelerates the longer they're part of a big part of society. I'm not sure how far that debate will get in the US in regards to actions/regulations, I expect it'll get pretty far in some nations though.

>> "Especially given the wireless carriers are essentially a group monopoly (spectrum limitations)."

That's an oligopoly.

1 out of every 40 Americans are convicted felons?

Edit: 1 out of 40 Americans are disenfranchised due to being a convicted felon?

"In the national elections in 2012, the various state felony disenfranchisement laws together blocked an estimated 5.85 million felons from voting, up from 1.2 million in 1976. This comprised 2.5% of the potential voters in general." (emphasis mine)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Curr...

If your speech causes enough problems? Yes. Remember Kevin Mitnick was banned from using computers at all, and I think was banned from the phone system for a while too?

> Remember Kevin Mitnick was banned from using computers at all, and I think was banned from the phone system for a while too?

Remember how Kevin Mitnick had a trial with transparency and formal procedures to prevent abuse of authority?

It didn't prevent the abuse, even though it exposed it.

"Dubbed the "most dangerous hacker in the world," Mitnick was put in solitary confinement and prevented from using a phone after law enforcement officials convinced a judge that he had the ability to start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone, he said." https://www.cnet.com/news/social-engineering-101-mitnick-and...

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