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September 28, 2019 03:34 pm

Should We Build A Publicly-Funded Social Media Platform?

What if the problems with social media just can't be solved by a for-profit platform? Writing in the New York Times, a former Tumblr executive argues the solution might require the creation of a nonprofit publicly-funded social media platform.The mechanics of how a public social media product would work have been fairly well figured out by now: It would be a digital platform that allows people to post and share a variety of media -- pictures, audio, video, text -- to other people in the network. I personally would structure it a little more like Instagram or Tumblr, where I was one of the early employees, than Twitter or Facebook. In other words, it should be built to prioritize sharing things you love over getting attention by simply being loud online... A nonprofit model eliminates most of the incentives for bad behavior. The network would not be under pressure from investors to generate growth at all costs. There would be no incentive to allow fake accounts; in fact the incentives would be opposite, since fake accounts impose costs on the network and provide no benefits. Unlike for-profit social media, public social media would be explicitly noncommercial -- no brand accounts allowed. In fact, there would be no accounts for any organizations -- this network is for people only. An account on a public media platform would be tied to a real-world, local identity, like a driver's license or library card. Anonymity online has real benefits, and a user name doesn't have to be your real name. The public social media network could keep this information hashed, unscrambled only when action against a user is required, which would make it easier to crack down on fake and troll accounts... In some ways this structure is very similar to what Facebook once was. TheFacebook started as a platform limited to Harvard students. This restricted access helped behavior on the network: Only people with a verified real-world identity and accountability could get in. This is not the case today with Facebook, of course, or with any other for-profit social platform that depends on getting as many accounts as possible... Public social media is an idea that our civic space can be improved by the creation of a platform organized in the public interest. A thriving digital social network is as vital to the public sphere as a public library, public schools, or even a public water fountain. Let's build one. He argues that this community could then work through any issues that come up, adding "This is the key work of a democracy, and establishing those community standards shouldn't be left, as they are now, for any for-profit, unaccountable company to decide."

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