On 2017-04-18 12:20, Herminio Hernandez, Jr. wrote: > On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 11:44 AM, Matthew Crews > wrote: >> Unless the government is somehow involved, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, >> etc. aren't suppressing free speech. They have the right to censor >> whatever we say, since it is their network we are using. This runs into a problem pretty quickly in the modern world: These things are insanely popular, and have become almost the default way for some people to communicate. Facebook et al essentially *own* the public square and all the soapboxes. When Ma Bell owned the phone network, we implemented "common carrier" restrictions, so the phone company wasn't allowed to censor people's phone conversations. I think it's high time for something similar applied to ISPs, but we've probably lost that battle. A technically sound RFC for some sort of "social networking protocol" no single company owned would also be a good idea. > I agree in principle, but these platforms are working in conjunction > with governments to suppress views they do no like. So, while I agree > that a private business can run this way they should stop the pretense > of being an open platform. I don't think they're pretending to be open. They're pretending to be safe, or family-friendly, or edgy, or whatever they think will make them the most money. "Open" is a thing that most people don't care about, so it's far down the list. There are quite a few Francophone communities in this whole Mastodon thing, which seems a bit odd. Liberte, egalite, TCP/IP? :-) -- Crow202 Blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress There is no Darkness in Eternity But only Light too dim for us to see. --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss