Technology

The government doesn't need a warrant to browse data that it's already in possession of. Food for thought.

Note:

This article is more than 6 years old

Fuck nationalization of social media. Honestly, this is one of the worst ideas I’ve heard.

The idea that giving the government a monopoly on the biggest data hoarders is somehow better than having the capitalists own it is mind-boggling.

The government doesn’t need a warrant to search through its own data.

The last thing we need is to give the state more power over our lives, more insight into our lives, and more control over the narratives we learn.

Every time humans have centralized more power into fewer and fewer hands, nothing good comes from it. We need more decentralized forms of media, not more centralized forms.

Oooooorrr.......Let's just break them up like we should have done a long time ago.

Okay, which nation gets them?

This is actually an interesting proposal. In fact, many utilities went the way of nationalization like water and electricity. Searching the internet, socializing and ensuring a fair market are all also things which could in theory be nationalized given they fulfill a basic need.

Of course, as they are, they would grant whichever government they were given untold power over the entire internet and our lives. Which seems rather... unbalanced. Moreover, no government should retain that right given the internet transcends borders. No one owns all of it.

Letting the free market run its course with no breaks clearly didn't work particularly well either.

Perhaps a third option? Instead of one government ruling all of it. Perhaps they were to be owned by a supranational body where several governments can propose and discuss changes/regulation and keep balances on each other? UN style? Worthy of discussion.

If anyone has other ideas I'd love to hear them.

PS: (Also, when one suggests nationalizations such as this, one does not intend for a nationalized framework to be the ONLY one. Alternatives brought upon by the free market would still certainly compete with any such services.)

First I'd propose a nationalization of internet services.
Without that is partly like being without electricity.
Yes, you'd survive but it's damn inconvenient in the modern way of life.

We need to split them, kill them, do whatever it takes to scatter the power they've accumulated.

They , as in people holding that power, want to nationalize them, because it simplifies the system they have already built for themselves.

Both Harris' program and such articles are all in the same direction. "Corps are fine, they just should be state-controlled and their services affordable".

No. People who want this are power-hungry fools, and despite their feeling of victory factually achieved and only waiting to be formalized, they will get fucked and this will fail.

Nationalizing Facebook is a terrible idea. 1a would turn it into an almost unmoderatable hellhole Twitter would pale in comparison to.

~~Using anti trust laws to ensure a free market~~

Giving ownership of the monopolies to the government... whose leaders are funded by said monopolies....

This is a dumb idea even for politicians.

Seems like it would be better to have government buy-in to federated platforms. There are some governments that have moved their official announcements to Mastodon, which is a good start.

What the Fediverse really needs to ensure longevity is government and journalist support.

Ahem, No. We need something better. And nations should respect their citizens' privacy and digital security. Not exploit it. 99% of any of those companies is about harvesting people's personal data and show them ads. We need the other 1%: offer some useful services. Nationalize Free and Open Source Software, Proton, Nextcloud and healthy social media platforms. Not Facebook and Google!

I think since we're living in capitalism, what we should do is force some competition. Make them interconnect and open up so the people can choose which company to use. Like with E-Mail or federated services. That should apply to instant messengers and social media.

Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon? If somebody posted that on Google, Facebook and Amazon, I'd say, “well, they seem to not know better”. But posting that in the noncommercial Fediverse? Why?

Back before the media decided it wasn't a competitor but rather a potential profit source. I do think the government does need to have it's own alternatives (obviously not identical more on this one day) for other reasons, such as for it's own media releases, but more internationally coordinated appropriate & considered legislation is probably better.

Lol. What a ludicrous idea.

How high do you want your taxes to be, for a start?

How about just making them actually pay an amount of taxes commensurate with the burdens they apply on society?

The only thing worse than a monopoly is a government owned monopoly

The genuises on PCM supported this and would try to push it occasionally because it would make YouTube be universally covered by the 1st Amendment so they could spread Nazi propaganda to children even more easily.

Not Ello!

Jk, I was the only person I knew with an Ello account. I know more people on lemmy and mastodon and fediverse stuff than I did on Ello. It didn't take much to predict it wouldn't work out.

lol that wouldnt happen though

What people think when they haven't heard of the Fediverse.