Here's the practical problem with calling social media a utility: utilities don't compete. They're protected monopolies. The second you regulate Facebook and Twitter like power companies, you lock them into place forever. New platforms couldn't afford the compliance burden, and the big ones would have zero incentive to improve. The internet works because MySpace fell to Facebook, and Facebook is bleeding users to TikTok. That doesn't happen with water companies. And think about what utility regulation actually means. It treats the platform as neutral infrastructure, which basically forces you to carry all content equally. You'd have to host the spam, the scams, the targeted harassment. At least now platforms can try to moderate. As a utility, they'd lose that ability entirely, and the worst people online would get a legal shield. I get the frustration with Big Tech. They've got too much power, and that's a real problem. But handing them permanent, government-backed monopolies isn't reform. It's just picking winners and freezing the status quo. We should regulate specific harms, not nationalize the whole model.

Your argument doesn't really address the topic, since abortion has nothing to do with whether social media should act like a utility. So let me go back to the practical consequence I raised: utility regulation freezes the market. If you force Facebook and Twitter into that box, you're handing them a protected monopoly with no incentive to improve. The internet's whole strength is that nothing lasts forever, but you can't say that about power companies. And here's the thing nobody wants to admit, once you make platforms common carriers, they can't moderate anything. They'd be legally required to carry spam, scams, and targeted harassment. That doesn't protect people, it protects the worst actors. We need accountability for specific harms, sure. But treating social media like water service doesn't fix that. It just hands Big Tech a permanent, government-backed moat and calls it reform. That's the opposite of progress.

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