Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
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I was about to write something in my comment to the effect of, "but let's not even talk about the government running it". Could end up like PBS, could just as easily end up like USSR/North Korean/Chinese media. Imagine Reddit but, instead of spez, it's Joseph McCarthy, or Donald Trump, with the power to identify and criminally sanction users.
I think in so far as people are in the jurisdiction of a given government, they generally can identify social media users already, and if they choose criminally sanction these people. In the US I'd argue the government would be far more bound by First Ammendment issues than any corporation. And you have far more redress against the government when they screw up than the current "you agree to binding arbitration" from companies. Which... honestly... says something crappy about our tort law and T&Cs allowed. My main point is that I don't actually think social media or discussion boards are a public good. I think it should be federated like e-mail (and the fediverse) but otherwise you can choose the provider you like. This seems like the best option IMO.
Well, there's having to put an unconstitutional demand violating the 1st/4th amendments on paper and sending it out to a company, and then there's just being able to log in as the admin and look for the information directly. Anyway, when I say "public good", I mean in a pretty loose sense, I prefer to see actual maintenance/management done by something like a non-profit rather than a gov agency.
Yea, except doesn't Facebook etc often make it pretty easy - no demand, just pay us some fee and we'll give you data? I mean, Google and Facebook are just selling the data. From what I recall hearing, the phone companies give away location data pretty similarly too. It's not a constitutional issue if you "voluntarily" give data to a third party and they're just willingly selling that - whether it's to another company, individual or the government.