Should there be a public option for hosting web services?

There is a lot of talk recently how private companies, especially large corporations, hold too much power of people's ability to express themselves on the internet. Now, the ones who own the servers, i.e. mostly large corporations, own all the power. The servers are the roads of the virtual world. In the real world, we would not tolerate private corporations to own all of the roadways, giving them the ability to cut off people from real life, should they choose to do so.

What if there was a public option for hosting web services? If such an option existed, parler could go there to get their forum back on the web. Rules for deleting posts or terminating service would be created by public officials who we all vote for, at the end being the responsibility of congress, just like we all agree on rules for being able to drive a car on public roads. Too many traffic tickets, and your license is revoked, based upon rules everyone understands and agrees to when they get their drivers license.

Obviously, I haven't thought this through at all, it was just an idea that popped into me head this morning. What are the pros and cons?

 

The more workable solution is to just require ISP's to be content neutral in their services. As long as they get paid, they provide the service. I am not sure that too many sites other than government agencies would be keen on being hosted on government servers for a plethora of reasons.

 

The internet could be regulated as a public utility. The electric and telephone companies have monopolies but are regulated by public utility commissions.

The internet was initially just servers and users communicating over telephone, ie AT&T, lines. Typically one’s internet speed was dependent on one’s proximity to a trunk line. It has become much more complicated over time, but I see no reason that it could not be regulated as a public utility.

There is no reason that conservatives could not insert their own servers into the system. Awhile back there were certain servers, who operated as nodes, that would block content that did agree with their conservative Christian worldview. Being as the internet is an interconnected web, such tactics are often ineffective, as the offending content can always find another path.

 

Unfortunately I think that'd just shift the problem rather than solve it. You'd just have a different group of people trying to strike the impossible balance and having people attacking them for being wrong regardless of what they do. You also have the issue that the likes of Parler are unlikely to want their site hosted on government run infrastructure.

With web-hosting itself, it is technically possible to do it yourself, it's just that for anything of significant scale it's much easier and cheaper to use one of the big services (which is why they're so successful).

 

Actually, there is. The Internet itself is Public. Anybody can set up a web server. Even at home. The problem is that there is no law to enforce net neutrality. So it would be at a huge disadvantage.

 

NO. The market will sort this out. The state should not be in the business of competing with private enterprise.

 

You do not want the internet regulated as a public utility for two reasons:
1. It is NOT a public utility;
2. If you believe at all in the concept of free speech, and the legal right to freedom of speech, you don't ever want to turn the web over to the state.

 

How do you propose to do that? What authority does the state have to enact such strictures?

So you advocate compelling private businesses by force of law to provide services to parties they prefer to not serve. Can you see any problems with that proposal?

We don't want the state anywhere near the web, frankly.

 

No, the antitrust laws should be enforced and monopolies split up. The need is dire and it may be too late.

The defanging of antitrust in the U.S. started in the late 70s, became vogue among libertarians and crooks and incompetents of all stripes from Reagan to the present, fever pitch during Clinton and beyond with few exceptions, and just look at the crooked, grafty large corporate aristocracy we have today. Just another reason that central government is a necessary evil whose harms far far outweigh any good.

Preferential treatment via government GRAFT regulations stifling competition and looking the other way when the brown bags were rich enough is what allowed these companies to become monopolistic as against upstart competitors in the first place. In a true non-mixed freer market, this could not occur, it takes GOVERNMENT malfeasance. Then nonenforcement of the antitrust laws seals the deal. Now we have a large corporate hegemony equating to a shadow government that is bad for all of us except the large beneficiaries. The mortgage meltdown of 2008 and what followed was caused in large part by this GOVERNMENT and CRONY criminality, not private sector. Without the illicit bank merger explosion from Reagan on to its crescendo in the Clinton Administration, 2008, "too big to fail," FNMA/FMAC fiasco could not have occurred. Yes, Congress is much to blame, but Antitrust enforcement is a strictly Presidential power, and it was effectively nonexistent for decades. We all pay for it now.

Don't even TRY to get partisan and cherry-pick with respect to the grave situation, ALL Administrations did it, the Clinton Administration especially, and Trump should have made one of his first priorities in breaking it up, he tried too little too late with respect to illicit social media and net publisher protections, but so much more was needed. If there ever is another non uniparty, non crime family POTUS Administration in the U.S., this MUST be a top priority and the changes need to be drastic and sweeping. This is not a partisan issue, it is 90% a gov-edu-union-contractor-grantee-trial lawyer-MSM Complex Aristocracy issue, gelled for decades, and anyone who tries to "orangemanbad" it is an idiot or liar.

 

You are aware that when you say "large corporations", you could narrow that down to a few tech giants and not loose any of the people contributing to the problem.
IF their actions are the ones you oppose (since they have been doing all the wrongs) why not say so?

There's a legal shield for those people that needs to be revised. Congress set up a regulation that allowed people like Google, Facebook and Twitter to be not classified as Publishers- but as latforms, where others could publish. That exempted them from certain rules, protected them from a lot of potential liability. But- when you become a censor controlling what is allowed on your platform, you have crossed the line and become a publisher. You will no doubt see that challenged legally soon- and democrats in power will fight it, because they are being served by it.

One thing any rational person on either side of politics should understand is that if you kill the right to free speech you are attacking not only the Constitution, but the very fabric of freedom- and only people totally devoid of moral integrity would be part of that. When you see people trying to do so- they are demonstrating that moral status, and you had better pay attention- they are toxic and dangerous and must be dealt with.

This is where the conflict lies, why some groups must set up their own server system to be able to use the internet with freedom. The cost of setting us a high-volume server base is huge. Like highways, it makes far more sense to share than for everyone to have to build their own. The right laws can correct this problem- question is, will those who are taking huge contributions from the perpetrators of this situation actually step up and do what's right. My bet is they will hedge, delay, evade, make token steps for publicity that fixes nothing and call the issue resolved.

 

The same way they force electric companies to hook up electrical service.

 

So you want to turn ISPs into public utilities. But your proposal goes well beyond the use of force to connect to an electrical grid or a gas line... you are talking about using force to coerce a private business to relinquish its First Amendment rights. And what is the remedy for violation? And what is the enforcement mechanism? I mean this very forum here -- if I were to call you a ******n *********king ********ing piece of **** (not that I ever would and I am not, simply offering this for illustrative purposes), this forum currently has the right to suspend me or ban me outright. Under you plan, they would be unable to maintain control over their own site -- that they pay for and offer to you as a free service. Then what about SPAM? I mean what if I wanted to plaster the board with advertisements for my new herbal erection cream??? How about hardcore porn? Nudity? German Scheiße flicks? And how about the language filters that bleep out the explatives I posted above? None of that is "content neutral."

The unintended consequences of your plan would very likely be to allow social media and message boards to devolve into some lowest-common-denominator poop flinging soirée where there is very little room for actual meaningful discussion. It would be like walking through San Francisco... yes there's a great restaurant there at the end of the block but we have to wade through six inches of human excrement, trash, and needles to get to it. I think your plan actually has a chilling effect on social media and the marketplace of ideas online.

 

At this point, I can't imagine government servers (the public option) allowing racist, sexist, or homophobic content. I imagine they would scan for such and track down the miscreants. Like the term "Nazi's" I imagine "racist, sexist, or homophobic" definitions will expand to take out political enemies.

 

never happen, never gonna convince far right sits, far left sites, christian sites, Muslim sites, ect.... to be neutral and allow other views, including hateful other views on their services

now if it was run on government servers, then they could say it has to be nondiscriminatory

would have to do the same with all media, like fox and msnbc too

 

I've been trying to get some of the Trump fans to admit THIS is what they're looking for, having the government provide it so that they cannot be censored as they claim is happening now. However, none of them seem to have bit, so I'm glad you posted this.

It really is the only way for some of these off-the-wall ideas to see any daylight. However, since we're only discussing an idea, it really would depend on how much this would cost. Personally, I would see it as a waste of taxpayer money. Tweeting, messaging, or any of these simpleton adolescent social boards is not an essential service.

If they are that desperate to get their message "out there", then pay for it yourselves.

 

Just so I understand your point, you are suggesting that if this forum were hosted on a government-run cloud platform, the mods could not actually remove or edit posts?

 

Exactly! They just don't get it. If they want to denigrate people with bigoted comments and opinions, they're gonna need to pay for it, just like anybody else.

 

You can get a rack server for a fairly low price, especially if you go refurbished. Hell, you can just host a site on your own computer if you want to. Might not be able to handle a ton of traffic, but I've seen it done, even for business sites.

 

Are there a lot of far right Muslim internet hosts in the US?

 

That was not the proposal made by the other poster. Please read it again.

 

Dominion power is a "private company" but they don't have the right to refuse you electrical service based on your politics. Only if you don't pay the bills. A lot of hospitals in this country are "private companies" too, but they don't have a right to deny your life-saving medical services based on your bumpersticker for or against whales.

 

My mistake, I thought you had responded to the OP. Even in the case of ISPs, though, I don't see how that prevents moderation on a forum. A forum is not an ISP.

 

Those are considered "necessities". How does that equate to tweeting or message boards? When did that become a "necessity"?

 

Straw men, both. Find an example rationally-related to an ISP, ie provides a similar service, and we might have a basis for discussion.

 

Given that it's NOT this way how does the Dark Web work? Are the ISP's aware of and approving of illegal activity, and don't they then become accessories?