FA_Q2
Gold Member
You may have stated that they act like 'public carriers' but the fact is they are not. They neither represent access (that is the ISP) nor do they have a lock on social media.You make a fatal logical flaw in this though. The internet itself is accessible by anyone. That is the ISP's that you are referring to - the companies that actually provide that access. What facebook does is host content ON THEIR OWN COMPUTERS and allow you to access and contribute to that content. What they choose to host or content that they chose to allow is up to them in its entierty. They own the computers and they make it avalable to the public as they see fit. If they wanted to go full out and declare that they are only hosing content that is backing democrats or trashing republicans that is their right. Just as it is the right of Breitbart to do the exact opposite on the website that they host.The idea of 'public carriers' exemptions was created for businesses such as railroads, shipping, pipelines, canals,, and utilities, etc. The air waves, and utilities such as electric lines, phone lines, cell towers, wireless bands, etc. are covered by those concessions. The internet and the WWW itself are government creations and also covered by them, so as far as access is concerned all have to be treated equally. If Facebook is allowed to ban one category of political speech, then at the very least it has to ban all political speech, and the same for any other site or 'private' server.
Facebook's bandwidth isn't privately owned, and it agrees to certain restrictions when using public carriers; its servers being 'private' means squat re protected political speech. If it wants to build its own entirely private network, it's free to do so. It hasn't done so yet. It can buy rights of way to lay it's own private lines for its private network across private property at the regular market rates; if it wants to use public air waves, public wireless, public utility rights of way obtained through eminent domain privileges and benefits as a public carrier, then it can't ban protected speech. Good luck with that; it gets very expensive, very fast.
Don't like it, don't use their computers. they do not provide a vital service such as water - something you will die without - and they are not a monopoly by any stretch of the imagination. There are a ton of social media platforms out there. Facebook just has the most successful one.
If they don't want to provide equal access, they don't have to allow political speech; easy enough to remove it. Like I said, they act as 'public carriers' and operate on public air waves and utilities. If a baker can be harassed and sued, so can Facebook for discrimination and rights violations. Free political speech needs to be protected, period;They can make their services completely private if they want to spend the bucks running their own lines to their customers' houses or businesses, and pay for the rights of way out their own pockets. Until then, they aren't 'private' companies, they abide by Federal and state regs similar to pubic carriers.
I never said there was any perfect answer, modern tech has raised a lot of legal conflicts. IF they're going to ban any political speech, they need to ban it all. If anybody doesn't like it, take your stuff completely private.
You position is based on a false premise. Further, those lines that you are going on about are not even public property either. ISP's PAY to put those lines in and then charge for your access to them - something FB is PAYING A PRIVATE COMPANY TO USE. Past that, those 'lines' are not even a monopoly either. You can access FB content through your cable line, from a direct satellite up link or through your phone lines. You can pay a satellite provider, Comcast, Century link or forgo internet companies entirely and pay Verizon or Sprint for your access - as FB can as well.
ALL of this is around private companies and private property. The fact that you simply want to declare it a public resource is antithetical to freedom. There is literally nothing that makes FB similar to the water or power company - companies that provide services that you require for general life AND have an utter monopoly.