The inalienable right to ‘gram

Fully Charged From     FOLLOW US SUBSCRIBE   Hi all, it's Eric. Most people seem to agree that the Bill of Rights was a pretty good idea. The amendments came on the heels of the creation of a sprawling U.S. government, and carved out explicit protections for individuals. Key among those is the "due process of law," which basically amounts to: The government has to treat you fairly. Today, Facebook Inc. is often compared to a country (with a population of more than 2 billion monthly active users), or a public utility (delivering social networking to the masses). Both are imperfect analogies, but there are things Facebook could stand to learn from their examples. Big technology platforms have become immensely powerful in the last decade. Alphabet Inc.'s Google is now an essential tool for finding information. Amazon.com Inc. is the dominant online retailer. And Facebook can feel like the only game in town when it comes to social networking (if you're not a teenager). All these companies perform services that have become so integral to modern life that it's worth asking the question: Do we have a right to use their services? And, just as important, do we have any rights when we're on them? The New York Times had a piece Thursday about people who inexplicably lose access to their Facebook accounts. They're suddenly cut off from their friends, message histories and family photos. The stories highlight how central Facebook has become to communication in the modern era, and how painful losing access can be. These sagas also illustrate something else: Many large tech companies don't give their users much recourse when things go wrong. Customer service departments at big tech firms tend to run lean. So much so that, unable to find help elsewhere, one man who was booted from Facebook went to the company's Seattle offices to try to plead his case directly to the receptionists in the lobby. It didn't work. Facebook, unlike a country, has no courts or laws. It has message boards and terms of service. How important is Facebook? Are people entitled to access the information they post there, or to maintain the online personas they've curated? This type of question will become more urgent as big tech companies get ever-larger. To be sure, Big Tech's growing size has landed some companies in the cross hairs of antitrust officials. But users shouldn't wait for D.C. to step in to demand more—whether it's access to their data, the ability to appeal punitive actions by a company or transparency into the processes that got them kicked off the platform. Do people have a right to use Facebook? No. But it'd be nice if the company at least took their calls. —Eric Newcomer   And here's what you need to know in global technology news Google said it disabled 210 YouTube channels that appeared to be linked to an influence campaign around the Hong Kong protests. The news follows similar moves by Facebook and Twitter.  Read about the very, very strange story of Patrick Byrne, who resigned as CEO of Overstock.com on Thursday. Investors were happy about the news.  The tech boom has arrived—in Canada.    Sponsored Content by Siemens Siemens in the U.S. Siemens technology is at work everywhere in industry and infrastructure across the nation. Our 50,000 U.S. employees work alongside more than 20,000 American suppliers to take on our country's biggest challenges so companies and cities can be engines of innovation. Click here for Siemens in the U.S.   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Technology newsletter Fully Charged. You can tell your friends to sign up here.   Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022