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1061 points danso | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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lykahb ◴[] No.23351178[source]
The neutral companies, such as utilities, online hosting or financial providers serve nearly everyone with little objections - they defer to the law rather than any internal policies. The more selective companies such as newspapers and TV channels are expected to restrict who can get published.

By representing itself both as an open platform and as a company with progressive values, Twitter has put itself into an awkward in-between spot and is bound to create such controversies.

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riffic ◴[] No.23351797[source]
Twitter has never been a "Utility" in the way that you may be imagining it to be.
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scaredtobeme ◴[] No.23354918[source]
The argument is that it's getting there. It's the leading platform for public debate in the US right now. Journalists spend their days refreshing their Twitter feed, so the effect isn't just in the size of Twitter's platform but its influence.
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riffic ◴[] No.23355198[source]
There have been people making these arguments both for and against for a very long time. Even as an example, on this very site:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I think you'll quickly lean in the opposing view after reviewing those viewpoints, because if Twitter was a utility it would have been declared one at some point in the previous 11 years.

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1. baq ◴[] No.23356563[source]
how long did it take to break up standard oil? ma bell?
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2. root_axis ◴[] No.23356796[source]
What would it even mean to break up twitter? How would that work?
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3. baq ◴[] No.23359739[source]
i'm just pointing out 11 years is a very short time for regulators to do anything.
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4. root_axis ◴[] No.23362879{3}[source]
My point is that websites are fundamentally different from resources you extract from the environment and the eagerness by some to treat them as such is specious.