
Police Departments Work to Expand Capability to “Shut Down” Social Media - detcader
http://kennethlipp.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/police-departments-work-to-expand-capability-to-shut-down-social-media/
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detcader
I know that HN mods replace the title of posts sometimes, but now they're
replacing the entire _links_ with other blog posts? Didn't know this. The post
I submitted was from PrivacySOS.org [1] which admittedly is more of a wrapper
(to put it programatically) for Lipp's post

[1] [http://privacysos.org/node/1217](http://privacysos.org/node/1217)

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x0054
The title is a bit misleading. They are working with Facebook on a program
that would allow them to ban individual users form Facebook, not shutdown the
entire FB, like the title makes it sound. Not saying they should have the
right, as FB is the 21st century equivalent of the market square, and 1st
amendment should prohibit what they are trying to do.

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pdonis
_FB is the 21st century equivalent of the market square_

No, it isn't. The Internet as a whole might be, but FB isn't. It's the
equivalent of a particular shop that happens to be contiguous to the market
square, but is still private property.

 _1st amendment should prohibit what they are trying to do_

The 1st amendment gives you the right of free speech, but it does _not_ give
you the right to commandeer someone else's resources for that purpose. FB does
not belong to you, or to the public. If FB decides to block you from using
their site, for whatever reason, then you just have to go exercise your right
of free speech somewhere else.

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nitrogen
_No, it isn 't. The Internet as a whole might be, but FB isn't. It's the
equivalent of a particular shop that happens to be contiguous to the market
square, but is still private property._

The telephone network was also largely private property, but its use was
deemed important and ubiquitous enough that telephone companies were required
to act as common carriers.

The modern "walled garden" web sites are becoming the only place where one can
reliably communicate with all of their friends and family, and thus the only
opportunity one has to exercise their free speech rights. Facebook,
essentially, _should_ belong to the public inasmuch as Facebook strives to
become indispensable to the public.

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gscott
The CEO of Facebook goes as far as saying he wants it to be a utility:
[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/facebook-the-social-web-
utilit...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/facebook-the-social-web-utility-
company/5152)

~~~
pdonis
Yes, back in _2007_ , and on the basis of exposing various API functions that
FB has now repeatedly shown that it is willing to arbitrarily restrict or
revoke when developers use them in ways FB doesn't like. They are within their
rights to do that, but it's not the sort of behavior that's consistent with
wanting to be a utility.

But even if FB didn't do that, the argument about them being a utility doesn't
hold water, because, as nknighthb pointed out upthread, FB could shut down
tomorrow and people would simply find other means of social networking. The
public utility is the Internet infrastructure itself; _that_ is what would
cause huge disruption if it were suddenly shut down or restricted.

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cryptolect
This is scarily close to what China does.

In China, the government doesn't really care about people complaining about
politicians and the government online. However, if there's even a hint of a
protest, out come the censors and posts get deleted rapidly.

They've gone so far as to ban Weibo accounts with influential amounts of
followers.

When I read that US law enforcement is working with Facebook to mitigate
protests, it seems like they're playing catchup using tactics not dissimilar
to China. This is incredibly concerning given the importance of protests in a
Democracy.

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D9u
_Video does not exist_

Uh oh...

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acd
p2p social media will not be "shutdown"

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coldtea
Why? Magic unicorns will save it?

