Mastodon

[Matt Graham]

On 2017-04-18 12:20, Herminio Hernandez, Jr. wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 11:44 AM, Matthew Crews 
> <mattcrews at mattcrews.com> 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?  :-)

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