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Comment by arkades | Hacker News Reader

You don't see the difference between "let's hold companies responsible for what people do as part of utilizing their services, while utilizing their services" and "let's hold companies responsible for what people do with an item they have purchased once entirely out of the supervision of that company, without any possible oversight or control"?

I can't hold a skateboard co. responsible for what people do with skateboards they've purchased. I can most certainly hold a skate park responsible for what happens in the skate park.

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By that logic you would hold the phone company responsible for calls and texts happening over their network.

Someone correct me if wrong but I think phone co's can get away with it as they're deemed an information carrier instead of a host. Besides, calls and texts are rather benign, it's visual media that tends to attract the most calls for censorship, not to also mention that real-time censorship of text and voice would be infeasible but much more viable for an information/media host.

And phone companies don't play an editorial role in determining what calls you get to hear, and who hears yours. Newspapers are responsible, even when they're publishing someone else's submission to them.

That's a strawman.

That is precisely the issue. Phone companies don't maintain control of their network to filter what calls and texts are allowed, don't maintain political rules on their network, etc. They are neutral carriers.

Meanwhile google etc are pretending they are neutral carriers while actively filtering and choosing what is shown, now politically, showing they not only have the capability to control their platform but put it in practice.

If they cannot allow others free speech they should not get special protection that prevents their liability.

If a phone company started filtering political discussion I would absolutely think them responsible now for everything on their network. Your example is perfect to show how different both groups are in capability and practice.

Phone calls are private communication. Isn't there's a law that prevents screening private communications?

A phone company doesn't have algorithms that decide which calls go through and which don't, or which calls are marked as important and which are not.

They don't? What about VOIP?

Okay, so are electric companies responsible for people growing weed?

No, I really don't see the difference, because the service here is the product. The service is not a place of accommodation like a skate park.

"Company makes thing, people do bad with thing, hold Company responsible" is a scary line of thought, and that's exact same scenario for both Facebook and guns.

"Thing hurts person using it" is closer to your skate park analogy, and yeah, in that case, of course Company should be responsible for making a bad thing.

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