> If we really want free speech platforms, lobby government to craft spaces for it in the digital age.

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything away.”

I disagree this is a job for government directly. No, I don’t want government socialized Facebook!

I want the government to enforce the spirit of antitrust law. They are ignoring that a competitor to Facebook CAN NOT exist because Facebook will smother or absorb them. I would like government to compel Facebook to use open data standards I can use to take my data to a service that isn’t actively trying to psychologically bleed me daily.

If Google trying hard couldn’t dent Facebook, there is no chance an organic startup will do it. And double extra certain a state run expensive and uninspired clone would do it - not to mention you’d be more wise to trust Facebook with your data than the government directly.

Strong disagree here. Network effects are king here, and social media is a natural mono/oligopoly. Overcoming this requires the construction of a superior and more addictive product, and the incentives just aren't there for such platforms.

The smart move is to hit them with the hammer of regulation here. They can either be the small exclusive club with tight control over their members and their behavior, or the mass market app with minimal control over their userbase.

The alternative is to have the full cyberpunk future, where "I like <wrongthink>" means being cut off from everything. Banks, search, email. We're already seeing the slope, and it's pretty damn slippery.

> Overcoming this requires the construction of a superior and more addictive product, and the incentives just aren't there for such platforms.

Nope. You can have a smaller, simpler substitute if you have comparative advantage in some other niche.

DuckDuckGo is making a decent showing against Google, despite arriving on the scene almost 2 decades later. A handful of righty / unPC social media properties (Gab, Parler, whatever Lindell’s app is called this week, etc) are slowly eating into Facebook/Twitter market share because they promise less moderation.

Didn't said righty social media properties literally have to face existential threats like getting multiple hosting providers drop them?

Moreover, this is only something that's fine if you accept ceding control of the vast majority of communication to private control. I. E, we now get cyberpunk thoughtcrime dystopia.

> if you accept ceding control of the vast majority of communication to private control

When our lifetimes has it not always been this case? Newspapers, television, internet have always been this way (owned by an organization and provided with contractual limitations). Talking face to face in your own home is the only unabridged communication method, even in the USA. I have always found this issue strange that people demand that App Stores, cloud platforms, web hosting, etc must allow any content despite the companies’ freedom of association (and disassociation). We aren’t talking about companies which are covered by Common Carrier laws.

And “existential” doesn’t mean what you think it means. They are rebuilding on different platforms and other substitutes are coming online.

I thought that was the Internet.

Instead of a centralised government backed platform, how about a decentralised platform.

Maybe something like Signal-with-Blog-Posts, with "public" posts hosted on IPFS?

There's no cession of power from governments to corporations; consider the recurrent social media hearings in DC, which as far I can tell are effectively just the bullying of CEOs to censor less/more.

Even this latest Delta, Coca-Cola, etc. seems to be just bullying: https://twitter.com/AmyBeePhoenix/status/1379295393301868546

It's just an upheaval of the elite.

You call it bullying, I call it ineffective posturing and pretending to get things done. Feels to me like a song and dance to placate the voters while not actually doing anything with impact.