4 ms·

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I don't think it's likely that government-provided social software would work all that well in the contemporary USA (unle

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I don't think it's likely that government-provided social software would work all that well in the contemporary USA (unless they built it with better security and privacy than they have ever wanted to see in the private sector), but the government can be seen as a version of cooperative funding and it's certainly worth thinking about. I would like it if my local government funded an alternative to Nextdoor, for instance.

amanaplanacanal 8y ago
I think the bigger problem in the US would be how to deal with free-speech issues. It either has to be moderated (sorry, no free speech here!) or it will be overrun by trolls, spammers, and other evils.
- darkerside 8y ago
  That's a great point. No need for moderation through postal mail because it's all 1-to-1 communication. OTOH, all broadcast media is heavily moderated today.
  - template3 8y ago
    Lol postal mail has a long history of moderation. A lot of first amendment case law with respect to obscenity and fraud comes from postal cases.
    - darkerside 8y ago
      Do you have some examples of what you're talking about?
      - professorgerm 8y ago
        The Comstock Laws [1] are probably the most famous US example, which made it illegal to use the USPS to send any obscene materials, including personal letters with sexual content. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws
- Reelin 8y ago
  I think this is a false dichotomy. I agree that the issue arises for current systems that allow broadcast (one-to-all) communications such as this forum. I also acknowledge that it exists for email (one-to-one), but I think only because in that case it's so cheap and easy to mass mail something that one-to-one has effectively been automated into one-to-almost-all. I'd also note that modern spam filters are quite good at their job. But for example, SMS isn't meaningfully moderated in any way yet when was the last time you had cause to blacklist a number? I don't see any reason why a newly designed system couldn't apply different techniques to (mostly) avoid the problem. Just off the top of my head there's personal whitelists and blacklists, federated systems (pick the centralized ruleset that works for you), community moderation (ex StackExchange), web of trust, the subscription blacklist model that adblockers use...
- tomatotomato37 8y ago
  A lot of that could be solved by just only allowing one account per person (no corporate/organizational at all) and requiring your real name, with any trangressions handled through the usual mob rule chaos. Nothing says this has to be a platform for healthy discorse, it just needs to hold well enough to announce block parties and post pictures of your dog

amanaplanacanal 8y ago

I think the bigger problem in the US would be how to deal with free-speech issues. It either has to be moderated (sorry, no free speech here!) or it will be overrun by trolls, spammers, and other evils.

darkerside 8y ago
That's a great point. No need for moderation through postal mail because it's all 1-to-1 communication. OTOH, all broadcast media is heavily moderated today.
- template3 8y ago
  Lol postal mail has a long history of moderation. A lot of first amendment case law with respect to obscenity and fraud comes from postal cases.
  - darkerside 8y ago
    Do you have some examples of what you're talking about?
    - professorgerm 8y ago
      The Comstock Laws [1] are probably the most famous US example, which made it illegal to use the USPS to send any obscene materials, including personal letters with sexual content. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws
Reelin 8y ago
I think this is a false dichotomy. I agree that the issue arises for current systems that allow broadcast (one-to-all) communications such as this forum. I also acknowledge that it exists for email (one-to-one), but I think only because in that case it's so cheap and easy to mass mail something that one-to-one has effectively been automated into one-to-almost-all. I'd also note that modern spam filters are quite good at their job. But for example, SMS isn't meaningfully moderated in any way yet when was the last time you had cause to blacklist a number? I don't see any reason why a newly designed system couldn't apply different techniques to (mostly) avoid the problem. Just off the top of my head there's personal whitelists and blacklists, federated systems (pick the centralized ruleset that works for you), community moderation (ex StackExchange), web of trust, the subscription blacklist model that adblockers use...
tomatotomato37 8y ago
A lot of that could be solved by just only allowing one account per person (no corporate/organizational at all) and requiring your real name, with any trangressions handled through the usual mob rule chaos. Nothing says this has to be a platform for healthy discorse, it just needs to hold well enough to announce block parties and post pictures of your dog