UK Labour Leader proposes a publicly-funded alternative to Facebook

Re:UK Labour Leader proposes a publicly-funded alternative t... by mindcrime on Thursday August 23, 2018 @10:00AM (#17827270)

That is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard in my life. It's like saying "Hey, NSA and GCHQ are tired of having to copy your data from Facebook's servers, so let's cut out the middle-man".

Thanks, but NO thanks.

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Re:UK Labour Leader proposes a publicly-funded alternative t... by comice on Thursday August 23, 2018 @11:15AM (#17827929)

If GCHQ access is assumed a common "feature" of both Facebook and "GovBook" then it's irrelevant when choosing between the two.

So assuming all else is equal, if GovBook has a charter to harness data only for the public good (and Facebook certainly does not) then GovBook wins.

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Re:UK Labour Leader proposes a publicly-funded alternative t... by mindcrime on Thursday August 23, 2018 @01:19PM (#17828975)

If GCHQ access is assumed a common "feature" of both Facebook and "GovBook" then it's irrelevant when choosing between the two.

But we don't know the specifics how much easy it is / how much they access / etc., w/r/t NSA & GCHQ access to data from Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. But with a State run site, I think we can safely assume they will have access to everything, no questions asked.

That said, this seems like more of 1a / 1b thing, and neither option is exactly appealing. For those of us in the public at large, the real answer is probably some variation of "the only way to win, is to not play".

So assuming all else is equal, if GovBook has a charter to harness data only for the public good (and Facebook certainly does not) then GovBook wins.

I don't trust any State government to do anything "only for the public good" and I can't imagine how anybody could think such a thing. Our governments are tools of the rich and powerful and exist to protect their interests. Any "public good" is an incidental side effect at best.

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Re:UK Labour Leader proposes a publicly-funded alternative t... by notahacker on Thursday August 23, 2018 @11:26AM (#17828022)

A hypothetical UK-govt-run real names location-sensitive communications tool could also be used for operations intelligence services usually wouldn't bother about and Facebook usually wouldn't respond to requests for, like police dragnets or political sentiment analysis

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Re:UK Labour Leader proposes a publicly-funded alternative t... by dev_north_east on Thursday August 23, 2018 @11:17AM (#17827955)

Except in (most likely) features, people on it (would non-UK people allowed?), support.... but I suppose it would have JC's assistant posting stories about how great the government are on it... what a draw.

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Re:UK Labour Leader proposes a publicly-funded alternative t... by comice on Thursday August 23, 2018 @11:20AM (#17827981)

fair points but different issues entirely to what I was replying to.

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