"Is Facebook a publisher or just a platform that connects people?"

That's exactly the core question in legal cases so far. If it's recognized as a publisher, it can be held accountable for it's editorial decisions. If it's just a platform, that accountability is delegated to the people posting on that platform.

The big issue is that Facebook will purport to be one or the other depending on the context. As a publisher, for instance, it's protected by free speech rights. As a neutral platform, it can deny that it disrupts the news industry.

This is is exactly what has happened thus far. Facebook says A before Congress, and B in court cases. [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-...

> What the author fails to back up is the either facebook/democracy argument.

Yes, the article falls short.

So, the question to ask is this: "How does FB even get away with this chameleon like behavior all these years?" and the answer is: careful exploitation of the legal framework.

An innate consequence of a democracy - to be more specific, any self-governing society with a majority vote - is that the process of law making are governed through models as described in game theory. Laws aren't "designed" and decreed in isolation of one another, they are often the result of bargaining, negotiations and compromise. Laws are also written by multiple representatives who often landed their chairs through complex power dynamics with their constituencies, interest groups and so on.

So, unless you're willing to dismiss democracy for a technocracy, the legal framework will never truly be "engineered" towards some ideal equilibrium through the eyes of experts. In a democracy, law making will always be a "work in progress" that represents the state of a public debate.

Facebook isn't a "political institution" as it is described in the article. At least, not in the formal sense of the word. But it is very much a participant in the same public debate that shapes law making. And it will unscrupuously use the flaws in the legal system to its own advantage as a private actor.

This leads to a big question: "How do other participants in a democracy feel about Facebook doing this?" This a moral question, though, and it is based on value attribution. So, the result is many different answers that don't easily converge into a compromise either.

Paradoxically, it's this disparity in opinions within the public debate that allows Facebook to keep doing what it does without being hindered.

> I don't think facebook is the antithesis of democracy.

Personally, I think that Facebook does hold a shared, moral responsibility.

Suppose your parents aren't at a home and you decide to host a party. People flock to your house. Not just your friends, but also friends of friends. And maybe people you don't really know. Including people who do not really care about blasting loud music at night, or even vandalizing cars two streets down the road.

You might think "it's not my responsibility how others behave", but you will def have angry neighbours coming down at you over you not minding who came through your door that night.

Facebook's design, architecture, principles,... allow anyone to partake in the party, but they don't provide the proper affordances to watch the door - e.g. moderation, archiving and findability of posted content,... - and they don't provide it either for private moderation, or public law enforcement.

By extension, news publishers do make the same cardinal sin by putting a "comments section" below any and all news articles without proper moderation.

The Web isn't an affair of a few million early adopters anymore. It's frequented by billions today. And this dynamic brings different, very complex moral questions that can't be readily be answered with "people are responsible enough, they will figure it out for themselves."