In the same way/to the same degree that the state manages the phone lines and the postal system, I suppose.
Yes, in the same way they had to bust Ma Bell for the same damned reasons we’re seeing again. Let the state be the dumb pipe or at least ensure that the pipes stay dumb. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the alternative.
Rather than private corporations who turn around and exploit private communications between friends and family members for maximum profit? Yes.
The state could abuse its power: companies do abuse their power, because to do otherwise would reduce shareholder profits.
There are technological solutions that could maximize privacy but they are not in use because the private service provider needs to snoop in on your conversations to build a profile of your life.
With a public service we could have a system engineered to maximize privacy. Not to mention real transparency and oversight that is no possible with private services.
With a public service we would have a system engineered poorly, like healthcare.gov. The government can't do that kind of thing well.
Then state should do what they did to make healthcare.gov work on the second time through. The roll out sucked but it's perfectly fine now
The state already has extremely heavy involvement in management of the telephone system. There is plenty of precedent for this being generally benevolent authority.
I want the state to specify restrictions on how companies can use the data transmitted in private messages on social networks.
The state already unofficially manages, manipulates, and spies on communication.