That is: A) Ballsy. B) Clever. C) Ludicrous. D) A good reason to cease private control over the online town square that is social media. E) All of the above.
That is:
A) Ballsy.
B) Clever.
C) Ludicrous.
D) A good reason to cease private control over the online town square that is social media.
E) All of the above.
On the surface there's no good coming from having social platforms being driven by profit, that goes without saying - but do we really want governments to be the administrator & gatekeeper of our...
A good reason to cease private control over the online town square that is social media
On the surface there's no good coming from having social platforms being driven by profit, that goes without saying - but do we really want governments to be the administrator & gatekeeper of our primary form of communication and discourse in this era? Both options seem almost equally repulsive to me, but when you consider cases like China who have such absolute control over their citizens' means to communication that everyone there is genuinely afraid to speak ill of their oppressors I start to think our corporate overlords may just be the lesser of two evils.
Even here in Australia our government is starting to consider implementing digital systems where people have to sign in to online social platforms and age-restricted sites with some sort of government-supplied ID verification system and that idea is just terrifying to me.
There can be alternatives to government and corporate run e-town squares, such as ones run by transparent non-profit organizations. One example is WT.social. I haven’t really used WT.social so I...
There can be alternatives to government and corporate run e-town squares, such as ones run by transparent non-profit organizations. One example is WT.social. I haven’t really used WT.social so I can’t comment about it, but Facebook doesn’t seem to be losing much traffic it. I think the unfortunate reality is that not only does a good platform need to exist, but something also has to click in a lot of peoples minds that corporate-owned social media is by nature bad and that looking elsewhere is worth the effort.
Edit: ironically, WT.social allows users to login using Facebook single sign on. :|
WT.social looks interesting enough from my cursory reading, definitely admirable in terms of idealising a non-profit no-ads experience but if the user adoption is low it seems like a "when a tree...
WT.social looks interesting enough from my cursory reading, definitely admirable in terms of idealising a non-profit no-ads experience but if the user adoption is low it seems like a "when a tree falls in the forest but nobody's around" situation. Tildes itself is hands down my favourite social platform but in the grand scheme of things it is fairly inconsequential from a social/societal impact perspective when compared to the conglomerates.
Down to brass tacks - short of decentralised/federated open standards platforms like Mastodon or Pixelfed etc. becoming overwhelming successes (which will not feasibly happen any time soon), running meaningful centralised social platforms have significant operating costs that either need to be funded by a corporation or the people; in the latter case almost nobody is willing to pay for services where "free or bust" has been the expectation for so long. The only viable social funding is through something mandated like taxation, which requires government intervention and all the slippery slope dangers of releasing control of our speech associated with it.
Edit: tagging @MimicSquid since they replied before I refreshed the page :)
To be pedantic, government funding is possible without government control. There's significant funding provided to all sorts of things considered of social benefit without more than incidental...
To be pedantic, government funding is possible without government control. There's significant funding provided to all sorts of things considered of social benefit without more than incidental oversight. Not to say that it'll be funded anytime soon, but it's possible that the EU might see the benefit of funding such a thing.
I was going to say the same thing. But I was going to also add the caveat that government funding without government control is, unfortunately, increasingly difficult in today's polarized...
I was going to say the same thing. But I was going to also add the caveat that government funding without government control is, unfortunately, increasingly difficult in today's polarized political climate with actors like Ron DeSantis on the rise. However, there are a few examples of non-government funded organizations, like Wikimedia, that survive on donations from users and philanthropic organizations. And it looks like they're doing it pretty well. According to that linked page:
By 2021, [Wikimedia] employed over 550 staff and contractors, with annual revenues in excess of US$160 million, annual expenses of around US$110 million, and a growing endowment, which surpassed US$100 million in June 2021.
I don't know why such non-corporate social platforms fail to take off but, again, I think a big part is that platforms like Facebook have a frequency dependent stickiness that disincentivizes individuals from leaving. And until a lot of people decide to leave, it's unlikely to happen.
@sleepydave, I found on the Wikipedia entry for WT.Social that they are looking into ActivityPub. That remark was from 2019 and I'm not sure what has happened since.
I very explicitly did not advocate for governmental takeover. My ideal form would be a transparently-governed non-profit entity, with robust protections against governmental intervention or...
I very explicitly did not advocate for governmental takeover. My ideal form would be a transparently-governed non-profit entity, with robust protections against governmental intervention or regulatory capture.
Nothing about this would surprise me one bit. We are talking about a platform here that has turned more of a blatant blind eye towards CP than even PornHub...
Nothing about this would surprise me one bit. We are talking about a platform here that has turned more of a blatant blind eye towards CP than even PornHub...
So, I just learned that
So, a tabloid. I suppose BBC is more trustworthy. Here you go.
That is:
A) Ballsy.
B) Clever.
C) Ludicrous.
D) A good reason to cease private control over the online town square that is social media.
E) All of the above.
On the surface there's no good coming from having social platforms being driven by profit, that goes without saying - but do we really want governments to be the administrator & gatekeeper of our primary form of communication and discourse in this era? Both options seem almost equally repulsive to me, but when you consider cases like China who have such absolute control over their citizens' means to communication that everyone there is genuinely afraid to speak ill of their oppressors I start to think our corporate overlords may just be the lesser of two evils.
Even here in Australia our government is starting to consider implementing digital systems where people have to sign in to online social platforms and age-restricted sites with some sort of government-supplied ID verification system and that idea is just terrifying to me.
There can be alternatives to government and corporate run e-town squares, such as ones run by transparent non-profit organizations. One example is WT.social. I haven’t really used WT.social so I can’t comment about it, but Facebook doesn’t seem to be losing much traffic it. I think the unfortunate reality is that not only does a good platform need to exist, but something also has to click in a lot of peoples minds that corporate-owned social media is by nature bad and that looking elsewhere is worth the effort.
Edit: ironically, WT.social allows users to login using Facebook single sign on. :|
WT.social looks interesting enough from my cursory reading, definitely admirable in terms of idealising a non-profit no-ads experience but if the user adoption is low it seems like a "when a tree falls in the forest but nobody's around" situation. Tildes itself is hands down my favourite social platform but in the grand scheme of things it is fairly inconsequential from a social/societal impact perspective when compared to the conglomerates.
Down to brass tacks - short of decentralised/federated open standards platforms like Mastodon or Pixelfed etc. becoming overwhelming successes (which will not feasibly happen any time soon), running meaningful centralised social platforms have significant operating costs that either need to be funded by a corporation or the people; in the latter case almost nobody is willing to pay for services where "free or bust" has been the expectation for so long. The only viable social funding is through something mandated like taxation, which requires government intervention and all the slippery slope dangers of releasing control of our speech associated with it.
Edit: tagging @MimicSquid since they replied before I refreshed the page :)
To be pedantic, government funding is possible without government control. There's significant funding provided to all sorts of things considered of social benefit without more than incidental oversight. Not to say that it'll be funded anytime soon, but it's possible that the EU might see the benefit of funding such a thing.
I was going to say the same thing. But I was going to also add the caveat that government funding without government control is, unfortunately, increasingly difficult in today's polarized political climate with actors like Ron DeSantis on the rise. However, there are a few examples of non-government funded organizations, like Wikimedia, that survive on donations from users and philanthropic organizations. And it looks like they're doing it pretty well. According to that linked page:
I don't know why such non-corporate social platforms fail to take off but, again, I think a big part is that platforms like Facebook have a frequency dependent stickiness that disincentivizes individuals from leaving. And until a lot of people decide to leave, it's unlikely to happen.
@sleepydave, I found on the Wikipedia entry for WT.Social that they are looking into ActivityPub. That remark was from 2019 and I'm not sure what has happened since.
I very explicitly did not advocate for governmental takeover. My ideal form would be a transparently-governed non-profit entity, with robust protections against governmental intervention or regulatory capture.
Nothing about this would surprise me one bit. We are talking about a platform here that has turned more of a blatant blind eye towards CP than even PornHub...