this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Yeah - stuff like this should REALLY be public infrastructure
I know a lot of people are opposed to the state running things but I really wouldn't mind if there was a well-managed state-run federated instance for all of this
at least with Matrix Europe is already doing something like this since it's the de-facto-standard for a lot of the internal chats - but there really needs to be a push to make it more popular.
Having the kind of "lock-in" that Meta has where their userbase alone is an argument of using their service is horrible since it makes every competition futile...
From the perspective of someone in the UK, the ongoing shift in government and society towards openly discriminatory/suppressive policies aimed at some minorities (trans people, certain ethnic/cultural groups) and the accompanying moral panics to that effect make the idea of the state running, monitoring and controlling social media as a utility a bit terrifying - particularly for something so fundamental to modern life.
A lot of the issues with centralised social media in private hands would just be intensified if the state were directly running the show - it can’t be trusted to act as a benign, responsible steward.
The logic of what you're saying is that the executive teams Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg would provide better leadership for the UK than the current people.
I mean it's a low bar, but I wouldn't go that far.
I’d say that, honestly. Comfortably so, even - if the large private providers are acting badly, at least there’s the potential of smaller private groups setting up their own.
Services directly managed by the state tend to require adherence to a government’s political preferences - where something like the idea of social media as a state-owned utility is concerned, the reality of that would inevitably trend in unfortunate directions for minorities that the government has decided to consider a problem.
It really sucks that this is a legit concern in the UK these days, I'm sorry.