Should social media companies be treated as public utilities?

When three companies control how 80% of Americans get their news and communicate, that's not a free market - that's an oligopoly with more power than most governments. AT&T was broken up for less. These platforms are the modern public square, and they should be regulated like one. Common carrier status, interoperability requirements, algorithmic transparency - the tools exist, we just need the political will to use them.

Turning social media into a utility would be the death of innovation in the space. Utilities are stagnant by design - when's the last time your power grid got an exciting new feature? And who decides what a 'neutral' algorithm looks like? The government? That's the First Amendment nightmare scenario. The answer is more competition, not more regulation. Break down barriers to entry, mandate data portability, and let the market solve the problem.

The market has had 20 years to 'solve the problem' and instead gave us an attention economy optimized for outrage, misinformation, and teen mental health crises. Mark Zuckerberg literally told Congress he'd welcome regulation - because he knows competition isn't coming. The network effects are too strong. Without regulatory intervention, we're stuck with platforms that profit from division while hiding behind Section 230. That's not freedom, it's corporate feudalism.

Oh, a billionaire said he'd welcome regulation? That's because regulation creates moats that protect incumbents! Every regulation Meta can handle is one that kills a startup competitor. And the 'misinformation' framing is concerning - who gets to define truth? We saw during COVID how 'misinformation' meant 'anything that questioned the official narrative,' even when the questions turned out to be valid. I'll take messy freedom over curated 'truth' any day.

Nobody's proposing a Ministry of Truth. We're proposing that when a platform's algorithm actively amplifies harmful content because it drives engagement, there should be consequences. You can yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, but the theater owner can't install speakers to make sure everyone hears it and then sell ads on the panic. That's essentially the social media business model, and pretending it's just 'free speech' is willfully naive.

That theater analogy is older than the internet and still doesn't apply. The real issue is that utility regulation means government rate-setting, mandatory service, and bureaucratic control over features and content. Imagine needing FCC approval to launch a new feed algorithm. Meanwhile, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads are already creating competition. The system is working - slowly, imperfectly, but organically. Government intervention would calcify the current landscape, not improve it.