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Comment by zanny | Hacker News Reader

Trying to make a slippery slope argument about a private corporations private, for-profit website is hilarious.

Twitter will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders.

If you don't want your communications to be under the total absolute control of a corporate entity you have no influence over, you might want to pack your bags and get off for profit social media.

You don't need to have an "argument" about "policy" on your own Mastodon instance. If upstream does something you don't like, you fork it. If another instance does something you don't like, you block it. Because thats actually your platform then.

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Im scared of such arguments. And im telling you as a libertarian. No, private companies should be regulated and shareholders cant be the only voice to be heard. I mean, what if starbucks shareholders decide that, lets say, african americans are no longer allowed to buy coffe on their shops. Would it be ok to allow it?

No. We have the civil rights act of 1964.

But presumably, were this discussion taking place in 1963, there would be someone saying:

<company> will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders.

This is all well documented history. I encourage you to look at the circumstances and conversations in govt that lead to the civil rights act.

I think that's really beside the point I am making. My argument is that history is full of people defending the status quo, until it stops being the status quo. Then it becomes taken as truth that the new status quo is how things must be.

We can have discussions about what a business can and cannot do beyond what they are currently allowed to do.

Yes. Exactly what I tried to suggest.

So you agree that they should be regulated. Law is regulation.

> I mean, what if starbucks shareholders decide that, lets say, african americans are no longer allowed to buy coffe on their shops.

If the shareholders are motivated by religious belief? Great question. I'm afraid to consider how the supreme court would decide

That would be against the interests of the shareholders. But if they all got together and decided to do so, the result would be that racists would go under, and I do not want to help racists succeed in business!

I never said not to. But complaining on the platform itself is not petitioning your representatives to regulate Twitter. Its wasting time and throwing words into a bottomless hole.

And given the studies showing how little the will of the people influences the conduct of congress in the US I'd strongly consider petitioning the government barely a step beyond an equal waste of time.

Which isn't just rolling over and taking it - but actually fixing it goes way beyond a moment of outrage enshrined in text on the Internet.

Evergreen: Twitter is a public company.

And the grandparent just argued that we should easily be able to regulate companies. You're saying the opposite, now we can't regulate because they're quote-unquote "private"?

Well, which is it? Can we regulate for-profit companies for the good of the nation or not? If not, why not?

We already regulate companies through laws. Pass the appropriate laws! The alternative is that we hope for companies to self-regulate, which may or may not align with what's good for society.

My suggestions for lawmakers is as follows:

If you have a user base in excess of 1% of the general population, you are a "Platform" and cannot restrict entrance by individuals or businesses, or full participation thereof, except upon a court order limiting said participation. [Fines t.b.d., but expect them to be punitive in nature.] This law supersedes any Terms of Service a provider might wish to enforce.

Want to enforce "whatever you want" on your "platform"? Stay below the 1% threshold and you're good. Otherwise, you need to interact with the public in a completely neutral manner.

> Twitter is a public company.

Correction: Twitter is a corporation with publicly-traded equity.

A "public company" isn't the same as a "public good" or controlled by government and regulated as if it were owned by the entire republic

> Correction: Twitter is a corporation with publicly-traded equity.

Is this a joke? Literally The New York Times refers to Twitter as a "public company"[0], as does the rest of the known universe. Educate yourself.

[0] https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/live-blog-tracking-t... "Twitter began life as a public company on Thursday..."

No, it's not a joke.

Yes, the term "public company" is used widely, but it doesn't mean what you think it means given the rest of your comment.

Whether a company is publicly traded or not makes no difference on how much the government can regulate it. Educate yourself.

> And the grandparent just argued that we should easily be able to regulate companies.

That is what you got out of comment? That certainly wasn't my argument, and rereading what I wrote, I still don't see how you get it.

Let me be succinct: I wasn't arguing for or against Twitter's actions or making any suggestions for what I would do. I was simply pointing out that making an argument solely on the grounds it is a slippery slope is vacuous.

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