No.
Facebook is a private entity, which others may use or compete with.
Zuck & co may set & enforce their rules on their servers as they see fit.
Remember Sears? Kodak? CompuServe? AOL? etc?
Every “deeply concerning” unstoppable world-defining juggernaut of the past has ... passed.
I’ve seen many social media sites come & go over the decades, from small to world-shaping. They all have a definite life cycle.
And Facebook is showing signs of their looming demise. Signal-to-noise ratio is falling, nobody wants to go there because everyone is there, there’s huge pent-up demand for a mass exodus to the next big thing.
Ditto Twitter.
They’re not “public utilities”. The government is not giving them special treatment/privileges (like physical utility right-of-ways). There are any number of alternatives available. Yes, it will be annoying to disconnect from FB because of the social connections you’ve made - so just start abandoning it, keeping just enough for what you find necessary.
They’re not “public accommodations”. Nobody is practically compelled to be there, and there is no need for them to accommodate everyone. Don’t like their rules? Leave.
I’ve resisted the “log in with Facebook” found everywhere. I’m actually part of a project to provide “single sign on” for apps & sites via other means. You don’t have to let Facebook be your doorman, rendering you impotent if service is severed.
Just leave Facebook if you’re so inclined. It’s not “too big to fail”. It’s not an irreplaceable public service.
See my #8.
Is that you, Zuck?
>>The government is not giving them special treatment/privileges (like physical utility right-of-ways).
Obammy was sucking Zuck’s pluck with the so-called Net Neutrality that protected this and other monopolies and did nothing to protect their users’ access or content.
Facebook is a private entity, but if their access rules are not reasonable, than anyone who invests money in a business plan — including one that involves political communication — that relies on Facebook should have a right to action when Facebook capriciously harms that investment. They cannot change the terms of their agreement unilaterally, any vagueness in the terms of agreement by law SHOULD be settled in favor of the customer.
That means if they say, “no politically offensive content,” they either must provide an objective standards for determining what is politically offensive. If they outsource to political lynch mobs, they should be financially responsible for the actions of those political lynch mobs.
You can’t just say, “well, don’t include social media in any business plan,” when it’s THE way to reach hundreds of millions of your customers. For countless fields, If you don’t engage in social media you’re an idiot. There’s no other word for it: you are absolutely stunting the potential of your business so severely you won’t be able to compete. Any corporation that would invest in your company should have its board of directors immediately fire any executive so incredibly stupid as to lend you any money.
One could go after Google and Twitter for anti-competitive practices.
Gab.ai is trying to be a rival to Twitter. Google bans it from their Android store and discriminates against it in search results, making it harder to find, because of its incestuous relationship with Twitter.
Not to get into an argument here, Facebook is not a private entity. They are a publicly held company like Sears, Kodak, CompuServe, AOL and other companies you mentioned.
Having said that, I personally don't give a damn' how Fakebook runs itself. I really don't. What irks me in all this is that stupid users don't understand that when they link their authentication from other social media services to their Fakebook account, that those accounts become unavailable when Fakebook suspends or terminates their access.
DUH!
Really? They didn't know this? They never stopped to ask themselves what happens to their other "social media services" if their Fakebook account suddenly stops working for any reason? People are really this stupid that they don't know this when they link accounts across platforms?
As for the rest of your post, I completely agree and hurt my aging neck nodding in agreement. Fakebook is showing signs of their looming demise and they'll have their own life cycle just like My Space, CompuServe and other "platforms" before them.
I personally will enjoy the FedGov climbing up all inside Mark Zuckerberg's ass in the coming weeks and months. When the FedGov decides its a public utility and starts regulating it, that'll truly be the end. :-)
One last comment: My own personal belief is that all these social media platforms have a direct hand in the polarization of America across political/economic/social class and other dividing lines. People will say things on social media they'd never say directly to someone's face. They think they have the safety and comfort of "the platform" to protect them when all they're really doing is contributing to the division in this country.
Nothing would make me happier than seeing the likes of Facebook, Twitter and others going by the wayside and watching people actually have to start interacting face to face again. We were a much more civil society back then. Things that needed to remain unsaid WERE left unsaid.
Well said.