It's well within their rights as a private company, right? We need to have a serious discussion about the power these FAANGs are exerting and we need to stop making excuses for them.
Is it within the rights of a company to dictate what software I have installed on my personal machine? If Facebook wants to ban every account using the software that is within their rights, but they don't get a say in what I have installed.
Different field, but GeForce Now received a lot of cease-and-desist letters from a bunch of game publishers for allowing people to run games on their platform.
For context, GFN lets you essentially rent a virtual machine in the cloud, where you can log in with your own Steam account and play the games that you've already purchased. For whatever reason, game publishers saw it appropriate to demand GFN to stop offering this service. And, more baffling, some users actually suported the publisher's actions. Just to make it clear, GFN is not letting you play games you do not own, they're simply letting you rent hardware on which to play games you've already purchased on Steam.
This is no different than cd.com back in the day. You could rip and upload CDs so you could play your own songs anywhere, and it was immediately shut down by the RIAA. The argument is that streaming doesn't have a doctrine of first sale, even for items you have supposedly "bought" at full price, so publishers get total control over anything that is streamed. The government and the courts have agreed.
In this case though, the license on Steam follows your account on the platform and not a single time downloaded digital or physical copy.
So the lack of license argument doesn't make sense. At best they can put an explicit term in the license that the game can't run from servers you rent access to, or equivalent. But then that has to already be in the license.
I don't remember the name of the company but there was a video streaming service that worked similarly a decade or so ago with remotely playing DVDs. They were sued out of business despite going to extreme lengths to follow copyright laws. That legal precedent was probably used here to block GFN.
The one I recall was about streaming OTA transmissions captured from individual antennas, one per user, essentially renting remote access to the antennas. The court essentially said relaying the stream is a new broadcast and needs its own broadcast license.
Not too long ago I remember people on this exact site making the argument that Slack had a right to determine what browser extensions I ran. Slack also tried to make this argument in the name of "security" when I wrote to them about it. But yes to your point, NO they do not get a say in what users install.
Thank you for taking the time to write in and share
your concerns.
We hear you and understand how important this issue is
to developers. As a communication company we want to
make sure we don't put our customers and their data at
risk, and it's something we take very seriously. We
provide a full-featured platform with many avenues for
improving user experience while working with Slack, but
we need to also provide the security and privacy
controls business owners, IT administrators, and users
expect. We're happy to continue the conversation about
UX improvements and future extensions to the platform.
This is something we'll keep working on as we listen to
feedback from the developer community.
That is a cop out and you know it. An it administrator
or corporate is not using this extension and they would
lock down their users from installing BROWSER
extensions if they thought that was a security risk.
Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate your
thoughts on this matter.
I'd like to pose a hypothetical to you if you don't
mind! Bearing in mind Slack is a product designed to
help teams work together and is geared towards business
and enterprises — imagine for a second we're working
with an enterprise considering adopting Slack and their
security team comes across this extension (or something
like it) — and identifies it as a
security/privacy/reliability concern. Our job is to
alleviate these concerns. They expect better from us
and we're doing our best to meet and even exceed those
expectations. We're certainly not perfect and we can
always do better — for businesses big and small and for
developers.
It is important to note here, we're learning from this
experience. We're working with the developer to find a
middle-ground which is beneficial to everyone involved.
We're reevaluating our processes for these situations.
We're listening to feedback from users such as yourself
and identifying areas we could improve.
I understand this has been a disappointing and
frustrating situation and I do apologise for any
difficulty it has caused you. I promise you, we're
working on it. I for one am very excited to see what
comes from this. It's been a learning opportunity for
us all.
Let me know if you have any questions, or suggestions.
I'm here to help!
No it's not. However, they didn't send a cease-and-desist letter to the users that installed the plugin. They sent the letter to the researchers that built the plugin that uses the service Facebook offers in a way that is against Facebook's wishes. Therefore, technically, the letter is going to the correct party and for the right reasons.
Mind, I'm saying 'technically'. Ethically, I think Facebook (and other big social tech) should be researched more. In legal ways, this is how they should handle this.
It's interesting. What would be an "acceptable" mix of demographics for political ads recipients? That is to say, what is the answer to that question where there is no PR story, where Facebook doesn't look bad? If the answer is, none at all... I'm sure we can see where they are coming from.
In my opinion you don't really need to do the NYU study. Intellectually honestly, many political ads will disproportionately appear in front of users with different demographics than their census tracts, regardless of their targeting parameters. In my experience many of the demographics of users in many software products are arbitrary, telling you nothing about the content and much more about acquisition channels and technology usage patterns at a particular point in time.
As far as I know, Facebook allows some targeting parameters for political ads. So they should publish how often those targeting parameters are selected. Great, advocate for that.
Intellectually honestly, that will conclusively show that ad buyers have a wide diversity of targeting parameters that, in aggregate, represent a complex mix of objectives oftentimes only adjacent to a specific election. Almost certainly Facebook already looked at this and found that geography, gender, age and proxies for user's race (like "multicultural affinity") are among the top choices, and that looks bad, even though it may be an important part of all ads targeted anywhere.
Is NYU's study going to have enough power to measure targeting in an intellectually honest way? They can certainly write something descriptive.
That descriptive, "Well here are some ads we looked at, and some of them disproportionately appeared in front of users with e.g. this ethnicity more often than others, which we editorially chose" - I can see how that is a lose-lose for Facebook.
Nice re-writing of history. Microsoft anti-trust was post Reagan. AT7T now is about 34% market share. The rest is between Verizon, Sprint etc. Not the same as what Bell had.
I see this repeated often, but it's totally incorrect, they do not resemble utilities at all, not even a little bit. I think everyone agrees these companies need more regulation, but the idea that they are in any way comparable to utilities is absurd.
> they do not resemble utilities at all, not even a little bit.
I think that these large communication platforms absolutely resemble other large communication platforms that are currently covered by common carrier laws.
Specifically, a lot of the functionality that these platforms provides, fulfills a usecase that is similar to the phone network.
And the phone network is both a large communication platform, and is all covered by common carrier laws.
The laws need to be updated to recognize that many of the online communication platforms are now as important as the phone system, and therefore should be covered by our existing common carrier laws.
All of this assumes an equivalence in function and access that just isn't there.
If my phone company decides who I can call, then I got issues. I can't trivially change carrier however I want.
If a website arbitrarily bans all kind of people it will soon be their own problem as people leave with a single click.
More specifically, I do not need linkedin, Facebook and co at all to communicate with people over the internet, stuff like P2P software never went away.
> If my phone company decides who I can call, then I got issues.
> If a website arbitrarily bans all kind of people it will soon be their own problem as people leave with a single click.
False. I use facebook for communicating with people more often than I use the phone network.
Being banned from facebook would have a much larger effect on me, and many others, than being banned from ever making phone calls again, due to the fact that we use facebook for the vast majority of our online communication.
> Is that because you can not replace Facebook, or because it's merely inconvenient to do so
As in it would be much more difficult to replace Facebook as a communication platform for me than it would be for me to be banned from making phone calls ever again.
So facebook is more in the category of "can not replace" than being able to make phone calls.
Again, is that because you literally don't have the physical option of communicating by other ways, or because the people you want to communicate with are too lazy to use another option?
If I ask you to meet me at the bar and you're banned from the bar I've selected, it's not the bar's problem.
> literally don't have the physical option of communicating
I am saying that the problems of getting kicked off of a facebook are larger than that of getting kicked off of the communication utility that is phone calls.
And this is due to things like network effect.
And these issues and prevention that make it difficult for people to switch is larger on facebook than it is for phone calls.
So the "physical prevention" is larger for facebook than it is for phone calls.
I seriously doubt that. Network effect "just" makes a particular means of communication more favorable - it doesn't prevent the use of any of the options.
Not being able to use the phone cuts you of from a lot of services where no option exists.
> I think that these large communication platforms absolutely resemble other large communication platforms that are currently covered by common carrier laws
They have nothing in common except the "communication" label.
> Specifically, a lot of the functionality that these platforms provides, fulfills a usecase that is similar to the phone network
They don't. The "phone network" is what provides access to the internet, a website is not a phone company, it sits at a higher level of abstraction. That's like saying a popular TV show is a broadcast network because everyone watches that show.
> online communication platforms are now as important as the phone system
That's not true. If the top 10 most popular websites on the internet disappeared overnight there would still be many thousands of ways to communicate over the internet.
> They have nothing in common except the "communication" label.
Sure they do. They have usecases in common.
There are many ways that I communicate with people, online, that has now entirely replaced me calling those people up on the phone.
That is how they are similar. They are similar in that online services are, in many cases, direct or indirect substitutes for the same exact usecase.
> They don't
They absolutely do. The shared functionality is that I no longer use phone companies anymore, and I instead use online services for that same exact content.
> That's not true.
It absolutely is true. To explain what I mean, I would say that I would truly rather be banned from the entire phone network than to be banned from something like facebook.
This is because I legitimately use facebook for communication more often than I use phones. Therefore, being banned from facebook would have a larger impact on my life than being banned from ever making a phone call again.
That is how facebook is more important than the phone network.
It is more important in that being banned from facebook would have a larger effect on my life than being banned from make phone calls ever again, due to the fact that I use facebook much much more for communication.
> This is because I legitimately use facebook for communication more often than I use phones. Therefore, being banned from facebook would have a larger impact on my life than being banned from ever making a phone call again..
If you use Facebook as your primary communication platform I can see how getting banned from Facebook would be very inconvenient, unfortunately, the fact that you would rely on Facebook in such a manner doesn't change the reality that Facebook is just one website, while a phone network is fundamental infrastructure that underpins internet connectivity. For the vast majority of Facebook users losing access to the phone network would mean losing access to not just Facebook, but everything on the internet. You might have grown accustomed to thinking of Facebook as something more than just a website, but that conception is simply wrong, the idea that Facebook is comparable to the network that Facebook runs on is categorically incorrect.
> e fact that you would rely on Facebook in such a manner
It is the reality of the situation that a whole lot of people rely on facebook in such a manner, and because of the network effect they would be unable to convince all of their friends and family to switch to other platforms.
One person cannot defeat platform locking and network effects.
> while a phone network is fundamental infrastructure
Not really. It would be easier for me to never call someone's phone number again, than to get rid of other communication platforms that I use.
> It is the reality of the situation that a whole lot of people rely on facebook
You're just wrong. The overwhelming majority of people use a variety of communication services like e-mail, imessage/sms and many others, and this is common knowledge, people who only use Facebook for communication are frankly extremely rare.
I am saying that they rely on it more for communication than they do on phone calls.
I communicate with people much more over Facebook than I do through actual phone calls, and it would be less of a problem to be banned from ever making phone calls again than it would be to be banned from facebook.
> I am saying that they rely on it more for communication than they do on phone calls.
Nobody is talking about phone calls and you know it. It doesn't matter that you use Facebook more than anything else, it doesn't change what Facebook actually is. If you use discord or slack to do most of your communicating that doesn't mean they become utilities, that's just your personal preference.
Literally I was the one to bring up this example in the very beginning. It was my example, that I chose at the start. So yes, that is relevant.
The fact of the matter is, that me being banned from ever making phone calls again would absolutely be a larger problem for me, and many other people, than if we were banned from using facebook.
> It doesn't matter that you use Facebook more than anything else
Of course it does. It is a point of comparison, so as to show that it would be a bigger problem to be banned from facebook than it would be to be banned from making phone calls.
> that's just your personal preference.
I can assure you that there are many people for whom it would be a bigger problem to be banned from facebook than to be banned from making phone calls.
> It was my example, that I chose at the start. So yes, that is relevant.
It's not relevant because you're ignoring the fact that "the phone network" doesn't primarily mean "phone calls" it primarily means "internet access".
> The fact of the matter is, that me being banned from ever making phone calls again would absolutely be a larger problem for me
Yes, you keep repeating that over and over again (3 times in this response) but what you don't seem to understand is that nobody is forcing you to rely exclusively on a single website for all your communications, that is a self-imposed restriction that isn't meaningful when trying to decide if a website meets the definition of a utility.
> what you don't seem to understand is that nobody is forcing you to rely exclusively on a single website for all your communications
That does not change the fact that it would be a bigger problem for me to be banned from facebook than it would be for me to be banned from making phone calls, lol.
So when you say this "nobody is forcing you", you are ignoring the fact that they would be forcing a problem on me that would be larger than if I were banned from making phone calls.
So yes. They would be forcing an issue on me that would be larger than if they banned me from making phone calls.
> ignoring the fact that "the phone network"
Phone systems have fallen under utilities laws since before the internet existed. Therefore the analogy to phone calls is relevant.
You can look at home phone line systems. A home phone lines, that gives zero internet access, still falls under utilities laws.
Are you aware that a landline, that gives zero internet access, would still have to follow utilities laws? Just want to make sure you are aware of that.
> meets the definition of a utility
A perfectly reasonable thing to do is compare it to how much a problem it would be to switch from a different utility.
A landline, that has no internet access, is a utility. It falls under utilities laws, even if the singular only thing that it does, is make phone calls, without any internet access. Phone calls, without internet, is a utility.
And switching away from the system that only allows you to make phone calls, and has no internet, and is therefore a utility, would be easier than switching away from facebook.
Sure it does. It matters regarding the justification for the law.
Yes, I understand that common carrier laws do not currently apply to facebook. But, I am saying that the law should be changed so that that do apply to them.
And the justification for this, is because we have utility laws that currently apply to things like a phone system, (even if that phone system provides no internet), and yet it is easier for me to switch from that than it is to switch from facebook.
I understand that the laws don't currently apply to facebook. But it absolutely does resemble a utility in that the problems that it pushes on people are larger than that of other utilities.
That is how it resembles it. The problems are larger than that of another similar utility.
It's absurd on its face and this topic has been beaten to death on this forum; the burden of demonstrating why social media websites are like utilities rests on the person making the claim.
However, for the sake of discussion, I'll start out with the fact that a privately owned website is not an example of shared public infrastructure. Think water, electricity and other basic staples of civilization... Facebook is not an example of that.
I admit I use some Google services. At the same time, I have no relationship with the non G:s of FAANG, which arguably is 80% of them (though perhaps not 80% of the influence).
I'm not sure how they can really be considered public utilities at that point. None of the services they provide are essential.
Fair enough. I'm sure I use some web sites that are hosted on AWS, I did not consider that.
> Same with Facebook and their trackers, unless you block them.
That may be (though I block at least some of them), but that's hardly equivalent. I don't depend in any way on Facebook tracking me. If they stopped, I would certainly not suffer from it.
> I use online messaging and online communication more than I use the telephone network.
That's your choice, you don't have to use any particular online messaging service. My cousins communicate over steam more than over SMS, that doesn't mean steam is a utility.
I can buy the argument that they could require special treatment but I'm much more sceptical that social media specifically resembles a public utility.
If I decide Facebook and all it's products are trash I can pretty trivially not use any of them. If I dislike all social media I can choose not to engage with it at all. I would have a much harder time going without electricity or water.
Social media feels somewhere between a public commons and print media, and it's acting more and more like print media all the time. I'm seeing this election the banning of certain sources like the New York Post and the editorialization of what people say with friendly links to approved "non-partisan fact checkers" who are essentially opinion columnists that cite more sources.
Netflix is about as close to a public utility as the local movie theatre, which is to say, nowhere close.
