I think a key point is how important are social networks for society and what are the minimal functions they need to...
I think a key point is how important are social networks for society and what are the minimal functions they need to provide (or to abstain from) and how much legitimacy (and social support) is there to either regulate them far more extensively or recreate them from scratch in different modalities (say a large scale publicly, that is tax-funded, social network operated by a non-profit entity).
I am trying to think of what already existing social institution is the closest analogy to digital social network platforms: roads? Public space? The (traditional) media? The educational system?
Of course before doing something more radical, one could try first to fix the biggest problems with the biggest players in the market first (again). If we had large regulatory power over facebook (and given they don't develop a wider enlightened self-interest and social responsibility), how would we try to fix it!?
I am trying to think of what already existing social institution is the closest analogy to digital social network platforms: roads? Public space? The (traditional) media? The educational system?
Of course before doing something more radical, one could try first to fix the biggest problems with the biggest players in the market first (again). If we had large regulatory power over facebook (and given they don't develop a wider enlightened self-interest and social responsibility), how would we try to fix it!?
Social networks are important. People have different uses for them, eg dating, gaming. Some of us use them for information and skill sharing. as a poet I use socnet for workshopping. Social networkng helps us with all kinds of creativity.
ReplyDelete...not to rain on your premise, but what good would a social network be if it was handcuffed to tax-funding countries? How would you avoid seeing them turned into nationalist bubbles, with the imbalance of currency exchange creating have and have-not member countries?
ReplyDeleteG+ currently works because it is equally accessible by anyone around the world at no extra cost...
Pat Johnston Many countries would benefit if Google paid a fair amount of tax
ReplyDeleteMartha Magenta ...I'm not sure I get your point. Could you elaborate please?
ReplyDeletePat Johnston Countries where Google operates e.g. Britian which has been subject to austerity measures for a decade, we could use more tax income from corporate tax dodgers like google.
ReplyDeleteCan you explain what you mean by tax funding?
Martha Magenta ...the British pound and US dollar are two of the currency heavyweights around the world. The Euro is another. Whereas the vast majority of the rest of the countries simply don't have the equivalent economic base to match the kind of tax-funding schemes the £, $ and € could handle. This in turn would create the kind of special interest influence-peddling situations as we already see in those bigger countries.
ReplyDeletePat Johnston I live in the UK and there are many people here who live in poverty, homeless and or depending on food banks. It's disgusting.
ReplyDeleteMartha Magenta ...there are people struggling below acceptable standards in every country. That's not really my point. And to be clear, I think it's inexcusable that the wealthiest countries in the world so horribly mismanage their tax base that such conditions should exist at all in their self-proclaimed great nations. But the reasons this happens, are the same reasons a tax-funded platform could be so vulnerable. Imagine a scenario where certain features are only turned on for have countries, or where throughput is selectively throttled back in the have-nots. Or where topical and algorithmic bias skews to the highest paying countries. Or where political bias suddenly dictates which people you can socialize with, based simply on the country they live in...
ReplyDeletePat Johnston oops a bit dropped off the end there
ReplyDeleteMartha Magenta ...fixed - just a part of my ongoing struggles using a tiny screen to express big ideas...
ReplyDeletePat Johnston Looks like we are stuck with capitalism, until somehow humanity manages to create a better system.
ReplyDeletePat Johnston I agree, that there are difficulties, and it would be far from easy to implement such a system. But particularly for a developmental path where market players turn out to be incompetent to provide a functional, high quality digital social network platform, which is conform to basic rights and not (too) volatile to dysfunctional feedback loops, for that case, I think it might be a way to publicly fund such a system. It's not that states can't implement functioning complex institutions per se - even on global level.
ReplyDeleteOf course there is always the danger of too much influencing by the states, but there is a variety of ways how there can be safeguards from that.