Is Social Media a Public Utility?
Adopting the appropriate frameworks for what is increasingly becoming a necessity in our lives
I’ll be honest with you, this may sound like it’s going to be a boring article.
After all, talking about the mechanics and regulatory frameworks of utilities like power grids and sewage pipelines isn’t exactly the sexiest topic of conversation.
In thinking about utilities, though, I’m reminded of what David Foster Wallace said: “[T]he most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about,” and what’s harder to see than the cables and pipes underneath our feet?
If you’re like me, I suspect that you have little to no idea where your water comes from, or how the electricity coming out of your outlets gets to your home.
These services fall under the category of public utilities, and they include things like the natural gas in your stove, the plumbing systems that connect to your toilet, and more. Public utilities aren’t usually “public” in the sense that they are owned and operated directly by the government; rather, they feature a marble cake structure that blends private companies with public benefit interests and governmental involvement.
This makes a lot of sense. Big projects (like transit systems and postal services) should fall under the government’s purview in order to leverage economies of scale and public funds, while small projects (like restaurants and comic book stores) can thrive in the private sector; so it stands to reason that projects in between (like waste management and power grids) should exhibit characteristics of both forms of industry.
For example, Con Ed in my home of New York City is responsible for the electricity currently charging my laptop, and it’s got a strange structure whereby the company Consolidated Edison is an investor-backed publicly listed company, but its subsidiary (CECONY) is governed by a utility regulatory commission (URC) that oversees the implementation of the grid in NYC and the distribution of electricity to city residents.
Sound confusing? It kinda is.
The main takeaway here is that utilities — things like gas, electricity, and water — are almost always distributed with a governmental intermediary who can make sure that rates are even, safety measures are being enforced, and access is as equitable as possible.
Right up there with water and electricity, internet access has become an essential component of our lives, and in recent years, it’s been increasingly regulated as a public utility.
This is definitely something to be celebrated. While there are some horror stories of how public utility companies have gone awry, they generally have the effect of making vital services more affordable and accessible to people. And while we should be excited to see broadband start to fall under the public utility umbrella, I’d like to take the argument one step further and posit that social media should fall under that category as well.
I usually hate writing about social media, since I still harbor a bit of the feeling that it’s vain and petty. I realize that this is a naïve view, since anything that affects billions of humans should be taken seriously, and I’m trying to outgrow it. I recently downloaded TikTok, so I guess I’m on my way…?
Still, there’s no denying that the prevalence and importance of social media have grown in the last 15 years, and it’s now vital for business owners who hope to stay competitive, friends who hope to stay connected, and political figures who hope to get elected. Imagine you were a campaign manager but you were forbidden from using any social media: it would be a massive handicap.
For better or worse, social media have become increasingly dominant in nearly all aspects of life — from the way we learn to the way we love — and many of us probably check Twitter more often than we turn on a faucet in our homes. Yet for something so commonplace in our lives, it is completely devoid of regulatory oversight approaching anywhere near the other utilities we take for granted.
It’s true that social media is hardly a necessity, but neither was electricity 100 years ago, and that became a public utility. I don’t think it’s too much of an imaginative stretch to envision a world where social media become even more essential to daily life — we’re certainly headed in that direction already — and we’ve even seen legislators try to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of social media in a way that echoes the regulations surrounding other utilities.
I argue that social media are starting to behave more like utilities than luxuries, and so they ought to be treated as such.
Of course, we can’t talk about social media in general without talking about the big blue elephant in the room: Facebook.
I use Facebook all the time, and while I’ve written about what I think are its core problems, there’s no denying that Facebook is the apex predator on the social media savanna.
Facebook has grown at a staggering rate over the last dozen years, and it has used its dominance to buy out competitors and gobble up top talent— just take a look at its list of acquisitions over the years.
This isn’t a desirable situation. Whenever one company has a near monopoly on a service (especially a vital service), it’s a threat to the public interest.
This wouldn’t happen in the food industry, for example, because there’s sufficient competition among restaurants and grocery stores that the government doesn’t need to step in and regulate the distribution of food. But what if that weren’t the case?
Here’s a fun hypothetical to illustrate my point:
Imagine if I started a company called BASE, which would be a food delivery subscription service that allowed you to create any dish you dreamed of. Think Soylent + 3D printers: everyone gets a synthesizer device that could turn the proprietary BASE macro-nutrient blend into any food they wanted. We supply the goop, you turn it into your perfect meal. Also, because I use self-replicating algae for the BASE blend, I’m able to keep costs super low and sell each monthly subscription for only $5. It’s such a good deal and such an amazing product that within 3 years, everyone in the US has a BASE synthesizer in their home.
What are some of the problems that arise in this example?
Well, for starters, what if I wanted to charge New Yorkers less and Californians more? Or what if I made a tweak to the recipe that didn’t meet nutritional guidelines recommended by the HHS? Or what if I started buying out all my competitors and hiring an army of patent trolls to gobble up more proprietary blend formulas?
All of these problems, and many more, are just some examples of what can happen when regulations are insufficient and/or companies are motivated by factors other than promoting the general welfare and human flourishing (read: profit).
If BASE became a public utility, though, then there would be a committee of officials overseeing the operations of what admittedly should never have been left to a random dude like me.
In effect, Zuckerberg is that random dude.
Facebook will never become as essential to our survival as food or water (at least, I desperately hope it won’t), but there’s no doubt that its role in our lives is increasing in importance. Facebook isn’t filling our bellies, but it is filling our brains, and that may be even more influential at times. Some argue that journalism should be treated like a public resource like water, and because Facebook helps amplify and distribute the news, it’s like the pipes that bring water to our buildings.
I argue that it’s time to bust up Zuckerberg’s monopoly and treat social media as the services they were meant to be: platforms where all are treated equally and fairly, and communities can grow organically.
Is this just a pipe dream (haha! Pipes! Utilities pun!), or is this actually achievable?
Alas, I don’t know, but I’m not holding my breath.
Zuckerberg has a tightly consolidated grip on his company, and unless anti-trust regulators declare that Facebook is acting like a monopoly (which could actually happen), it’s unlikely that we’ll see Facebook get folded into the fabric of public utilities.
Until that happens, we should start thinking of everyday digital services in a more appropriate way — as forces that govern a significant portion of our lives.
