All companies worth above a trillion should be treated like public agencies. There’s no reason they should have this kind of unchecked power, especially with all the OTHER ways in which they’re anti competitive ALREADY. Including simply existing. Let’s not pretend that their huge cash reserves and ability to copy others is “fair competition”.
I just don't think it's practical to treat a social media site like a public agency. I sympathize greatly with the author reading this story, but anyone who's moderated a public website can tell you it would be completely impossible if your most combative users could escalate to the government and demand you prove why you should be allowed to ban them.
It's fine to think this will never happen to you because you're not important enough, or not controversial enough, or have the most mainstream ideas that would guarantee that you won't be a target…
Until it does happen…
The situation here is also a bit different from moderating "a public website".
Noone's saying that everyone should have the right to have their presence and reach amplified.
But these bans on LinkedIn and GitHub apply to the entire account and the entire identity of the user, meaning, you could now be precluded from doing the most basic things compared to all of your peers.
LinkedIn ban precludes you from connecting to employers at in-person events unlike every other attendee. GitHub precludes you from working at any startup that uses GitHub in their workflow.
Plus, as the example shows, causing any sort of disruption isn't even a prerequisite to getting banned by these services.
It probably isn't practical but you could do things like limit how much of the company is owned by one person and make sure that there are not special voting shares.
If it wasn't security they'd just pick a different pretext. "Oh you violated some comma in the 1k page eula, we gotta ban you now, can't set a precedent of allowing violations ya know" or some crap like that.
Security, safety, liability, risk, equity, inclusion, god, any word or concept that it is not socially unacceptable to consider anything other than an unalloyed good WILL be used in this way.
Note that the former employee of her company was still left permabanned even after producing the ID, per the post.
So I can totally understand why she wouldn't play those games!
To be frank, it would seem that producing an ID in such a situation, is pointless from the user's POV. It seems like it's simply abused by the vendor to institute and enforce a permanent ban.
Aline describes her experience in 2023 of getting permabanned from LinkedIn for several days, until finding a human contract through one of the investors in her startup.
Possible reason for the ban is her content makes mention of LinkedIn in a way that wasn't expressly approved by LinkedIn, and it all happened only after she took their offer to pay $500 to promote the post.
TIL FB isn't the only network to be asking for government-issued IDs all of a sudden.
This is the problem with becoming reliant on large monopolistic companies.
Due to business interests, they become enshittified, and have no incentive to provide you any value.
Social media apps are incentivized to turn you into a zombie who spends every waking second scrolling.
Dating apps are incentivized to keep you single and using their app forever.
You don't need LinkedIn if you get a good job.
If you aren't mindful about this, you will be treated as the compliant commodity you are.
But the truth is you don't need them. The best jobs aren't on LinkedIn, the best friendships or party invites aren't on instagram or facebook, the best romantic partners are not on dating apps, etc.
Doing things in real life pays a massive dividend now, and fewer people than ever before are doing it, because the barriers to the enshittified life are minimal, and the costs are downstream.
All companies worth above a trillion should be treated like public agencies. There’s no reason they should have this kind of unchecked power, especially with all the OTHER ways in which they’re anti competitive ALREADY. Including simply existing. Let’s not pretend that their huge cash reserves and ability to copy others is “fair competition”.
I just don't think it's practical to treat a social media site like a public agency. I sympathize greatly with the author reading this story, but anyone who's moderated a public website can tell you it would be completely impossible if your most combative users could escalate to the government and demand you prove why you should be allowed to ban them.
It's fine to think this will never happen to you because you're not important enough, or not controversial enough, or have the most mainstream ideas that would guarantee that you won't be a target…
Until it does happen…
The situation here is also a bit different from moderating "a public website".
Noone's saying that everyone should have the right to have their presence and reach amplified.
But these bans on LinkedIn and GitHub apply to the entire account and the entire identity of the user, meaning, you could now be precluded from doing the most basic things compared to all of your peers.
LinkedIn ban precludes you from connecting to employers at in-person events unlike every other attendee. GitHub precludes you from working at any startup that uses GitHub in their workflow.
Plus, as the example shows, causing any sort of disruption isn't even a prerequisite to getting banned by these services.
It probably isn't practical but you could do things like limit how much of the company is owned by one person and make sure that there are not special voting shares.
If it wasn't security they'd just pick a different pretext. "Oh you violated some comma in the 1k page eula, we gotta ban you now, can't set a precedent of allowing violations ya know" or some crap like that.
Security, safety, liability, risk, equity, inclusion, god, any word or concept that it is not socially unacceptable to consider anything other than an unalloyed good WILL be used in this way.
Note that the former employee of her company was still left permabanned even after producing the ID, per the post.
So I can totally understand why she wouldn't play those games!
To be frank, it would seem that producing an ID in such a situation, is pointless from the user's POV. It seems like it's simply abused by the vendor to institute and enforce a permanent ban.
Aline describes her experience in 2023 of getting permabanned from LinkedIn for several days, until finding a human contract through one of the investors in her startup.
Possible reason for the ban is her content makes mention of LinkedIn in a way that wasn't expressly approved by LinkedIn, and it all happened only after she took their offer to pay $500 to promote the post.
TIL FB isn't the only network to be asking for government-issued IDs all of a sudden.
This is the problem with becoming reliant on large monopolistic companies. Due to business interests, they become enshittified, and have no incentive to provide you any value.
Social media apps are incentivized to turn you into a zombie who spends every waking second scrolling.
Dating apps are incentivized to keep you single and using their app forever.
You don't need LinkedIn if you get a good job.
If you aren't mindful about this, you will be treated as the compliant commodity you are.
But the truth is you don't need them. The best jobs aren't on LinkedIn, the best friendships or party invites aren't on instagram or facebook, the best romantic partners are not on dating apps, etc.
Doing things in real life pays a massive dividend now, and fewer people than ever before are doing it, because the barriers to the enshittified life are minimal, and the costs are downstream.