and it's worth looking at what effect just the existence of the BBC has on other news and media here in the UK.

Take the childrens television the BBC produces - extremely high quality and very low cost. Raises the bar for all other (private) childrens television production.

I don't want to get into a political argument, but just for the record, the BBC is not a government news network. It is funded via tax, but it is independent.

aside from the fact that for a variety of reasons, the BBC is not truly independent, if it's possible to build such an independent media company "funded via tax" then why isn't it possible to do the same for a social media company?

There's a continuum of infrastructure from electricity, telephone, ISP, email, social media and beyond. If we can run national utilities at the start of that scale, not necessarily nationalized, but nationally regulated, I don't see why we can't run them at the other end of the scale.

I think the real problem is that current models of social media are dreadful, although I don't know of anything better.

Like the mooted BDC is?

I was replying to a narrow point that the BBC is a state broadcaster. If these things go uncorrected, misinformation can spread, especially given the global perspective.

I've not read the proposal. But some things, like telephone common carriers, ISPs should be regulated to the gills. Do I trust British Telecom Open Reach now they've been privatised? No, not really, but that's the way natural monopolies work. I don't trust them any more or less than I would have done pre privatisation.

Well quite apart from the BBC being very much NOT a government news network[0].

I think one of the more constant features of UK politics has been every single government criticising the BBC.

[0] One very specific aspect has been greyed. The Tory party, who supposedly should care more for independence, required the BBC to take on funding of the World Service. Previously Foreign Office funded, now in the budget of the BBC.

Does the BBC have all of my personal info and chat logs with my friends?

What it does have, and it makes me very uncomfortable, is the log of all TV and Radio I listen to online. And with the TV license changes, it's only a short step from actually forcing me to use my real contact details.

For now, the get_iplayer tool is an option.

Radio live/archived streams are available with no login in a web browser still I believe?

Amazing. So glad I unburdened!

Does the BDC have those things?