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Better perhaps, but what's your proposed path to implementing that? Is it achievable, and what eggs get broken in the course of cooking that omelette? One huge

Better perhaps, but what's your proposed path to implementing that? Is it achievable, and what eggs get broken in the course of cooking that omelette? One huge roadblock I can see is that you would need to address the question of what would replace privately held platforms? If the suggested replacement is something the government operates, you now have to address how that conflicts with the overall neoliberal philosophy of government that we've been operating under for the past couple of decades that precludes the notion of such a thing being operated in that manner. So now we're looking at quite a lot of smashed eggs. Whereas the former suggestion is something that has, at first glance, a reasonably straightforward path to implementation via legislation, and related precedent to boot. It's easier to make a targeted override of a behavior that is an inherent part of the system under which it emerged, than it is to overhaul the entire system to correct that particular behavior.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> If the suggested replacement is something the government operates No. That is the exact opposite of helpful. What you need is something that nobody/everybody operates, in the style of email. A protocol (like SMTP), not a platform (like Facebook). A government could usefully fund the development of such a thing though.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  I like your idea since it would mean more self-hosting and decentralisation, but I'm afraid it's the much more complicated way of doing things, and if it could ever happen, I'm not sure it can anymore given that we already have these platforms and especially the USA government would never shut them down, citing economic and national security (everyone's data now has to pass through the USA) reasons.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    "More complicated" isn't really the issue. It's the same amount of complicated as email and people use that. And people use it by mostly using gmail and other big providers -- but that's not really a problem as long as setting up your own and still communicating with everybody who uses gmail continues to be an option. It means Google can kick you off of gmail but they can't kick you off of email. > especially the USA government would never shut them down, citing economic and national security (everyone's data now has to pass through the USA) reasons. On the other hand, it means every other government has every incentive to make the alternate succeed so that doesn't happen. How about the EU take that fine money they've been sucking out of Google and use it to fund a solid free competing social media protocol implementation.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> If the suggested replacement is something the government operates No. That is the exact opposite of helpful. What you need is something that nobody/everybody operates, in the style of email. A protocol (like SMTP), not a platform (like Facebook). A government could usefully fund the development of such a thing though.

lucb1e 7y ago
I like your idea since it would mean more self-hosting and decentralisation, but I'm afraid it's the much more complicated way of doing things, and if it could ever happen, I'm not sure it can anymore given that we already have these platforms and especially the USA government would never shut them down, citing economic and national security (everyone's data now has to pass through the USA) reasons.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  "More complicated" isn't really the issue. It's the same amount of complicated as email and people use that. And people use it by mostly using gmail and other big providers -- but that's not really a problem as long as setting up your own and still communicating with everybody who uses gmail continues to be an option. It means Google can kick you off of gmail but they can't kick you off of email. > especially the USA government would never shut them down, citing economic and national security (everyone's data now has to pass through the USA) reasons. On the other hand, it means every other government has every incentive to make the alternate succeed so that doesn't happen. How about the EU take that fine money they've been sucking out of Google and use it to fund a solid free competing social media protocol implementation.