Ask HN: Why Hasn't the US Government Provided Civilian Social Networks? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why Hasn't the US Government Provided Civilian Social Networks?

5 pointsRyanAdamas12 comments

Anonymity has its place, but so does validated citizen communications. With so much talk about the 'Public Square' and the pile on into Social Media over the past three years, from Truth, to Gab, Bluesky and now Threads; why hasn't the United States Government built a citizen network for social media where verified people can be who they are on a rights protected platform that government doesn't have to spend money on to buy data or collude to infringe on rights?

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Why Hasn't the US Government Provided Civilian Social Networks?

Well in a weird way the government already provides this just not in the way that aligns with the citizens intent. Facebook originally project lifelog was a government project that came out of Stanford SRI. The other side of that coin is that legally being a non government institution they can coerce FB into censorship or controlling the narratives. Google was also a government project to learn birds of a feather patterns of citizens around the world. They still receive a lot of tax dollars and effectively free real-estate. I doubt that golden goose is going away any time soon meaning that they are not going to create something that is officially a .gov social media site as they would not be permitted to censor or control narratives and the tax burden would be massive without going through government specific VC's such as In-Q-Tel.

This discussion [1] had some ideas that might work from distributed infrastructure but would still increase the tax burden. at very least for those of us that can use email as an alternative to corporate capture portals

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36602008

Given that [1] is an irrelevant link, I assume this is just a conspiracy narrative.

"Would you use a USPS email box?" is highly relevant

No it isn’t, except as a general ‘don’t trust the government’ innuendo.

Doesn't even need to be a "social network"; a government digital ID that others can use for authentication would enable a lot of things that currently stumble for lack of trust.

Of course, there's drawbacks: take the usual problems people have with say, getting their google account cancelled that you see posted here. When those problems are in the single silo of a Federal ID system, even with the presumable mechanisms they'll have to deal with that; its still going to be worse. Google doesn't ruin people's entire lives; losing your FedID might.

That's precisely my point; the government should be supporting free speech, expression and association, all through a platform citizens can use to ensure their rights are being trampled by corporate tech giants and billionaires with a public grudge or social agenda.

Being able to prove who you are at a government facility, like the Post Office, with a finger print or face scan, is going to be a lot simpler than a thousand back and forth emails with Google, Facebook, Twitter, and whoever else, because someone hacked your email.

A single silo given public trust is better than a distributed network of silos with corporate interests.

"public trust" isn't something I would grant a government organization. You can decide to ditch corporations. Good luck ditching the government.

Government should be minimally invasive rather than ever-expanding.

Given that the US Government hasn't been reduced since the 1789 reformation into the current Constitution and Union; I don't see how that logic ever plays out in actuality. States Rights were destroyed in the Civil War and economic activity transferred to the Federal Reserve before WW1 and the first income tax levied over a hundred years ago.

Why would anyone think "keep the gov. small" is ever a good faith argument?

How much effort would it take for state governments to make Drivers License databases available to the public? Could that data be used as a public ID system? If not how short could that path be made?

This was mentioned in the 90s: the answers often hinged on "but the states' databases will be hacked like swiss cheese!" which isn't an invalid argument.

>> why hasn't the United States Government built a citizen network for social media where verified people can be who they are on a rights protected platform that government doesn't have to spend money on to buy data or collude to infringe on rights?

There is no requirement to do so.

If you are a US citizen and want such a system to be made, you need to lobby your representatives in Congress to pass a law for such a system to be created and funded.

Because the American people would consider it a waste of their hard earned taxpayer dollars when Twitter, etc. are right there, for free, and they would refuse to use any such service regularly, assuming (correctly) that it was little more than a mass surveillance system and platform for propaganda.

Also, most Americans definitely wouldn't prefer a platform run amok with Nazis, racists and conspiracy theorists, which any platform run under First Amendment rules would have to be. Most people have no problem "being who they are" on the mainstream internet anyway.

Correct, you would have to deal with the actual social fallout of decades of war and public social engineering by intelligence agencies and corporations under the guise of "marketing and advertising" which is literally propaganda. People should absolutely be allowed to say whatever they want on a rights protected platform AS THEM. We want to know what people think. How ever do you address social disorders when everything is a censored platform with their own "fact checkers"?

Sure seems like divide and conquer for the purpose of conflict opportunism.

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