Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ We need to nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon. Here’s why

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This post has been making the rounds recently, and it was no doubt calculated to generate the negative response it's receiving. And let me jump on board and agree that nationalizing social media is a dumb idea. We would never generate the value for the money we'd spend. But. There is an argument for noncommercial alternatives to Facebook and Twitter, an analogue to public mail delivery or public broadcasting. The sort of model I would envision would be a public service providing each person with web server space and a distributed social media app (along the lines of Mastodon, but where each person could have their own individual instance). The trick is doing it on a cost-effective basis (though note that the government spends upward of $1 billion on the CBC (about $27 per Canadian (money well spent))). 

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 03, 2024 2:48 p.m.

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