
UK Labour Leader proposes a publicly-funded alternative to Facebook - AnatMl2
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/23/uk-labour-leader-jeremy-corbyn-proposes-a-publicly-funded-alternative-to-facebook/
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Joeboy
He didn't really propose a publicly-funded alternative to Facebook though, at
least not in the sense people seem to be inferring. He threw out some vague
ideas to create a digitally focused sister organization to the BBC, which
"could develop new technology for online decision making and audience-led
commissioning of programmes and even a public social media platform".

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mindcrime
That is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard in my life. It's like saying
"Hey, NSA and GCHQ are tired of having to copy your data from Facebook's
servers, so let's cut out the middle-man".

Thanks, but NO thanks.

~~~
comice
If GCHQ access is assumed a common "feature" of both Facebook and "GovBook"
then it's irrelevant when choosing between the two.

So assuming all else is equal, if GovBook has a charter to harness data only
for the public good (and Facebook certainly does not) then GovBook wins.

~~~
dev_north_east
Except in (most likely) features, people on it (would non-UK people allowed?),
support.... but I suppose it would have JC's assistant posting stories about
how great the government are on it... what a draw.

~~~
comice
fair points but different issues entirely to what I was replying to.

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anoncoward111
While I don't use FB, I absolutely, 100% would not use any government social
networks, out of both principal and pragmatism, period.

Money would be better spent on building statues of Ed Miliband. And that's
saying something.

~~~
mirajshah
Would you consume news from the BBC, a government news network?

~~~
afandian
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.

~~~
comice
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?

~~~
afandian
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.

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dev_north_east
I wouldn't expect anything else from him. The man despises private enterprise
and had the urge to nationalise everything.

I'd think it would be really funny to see this being attempted, where it not
for the huge amount of money that would be wasted.

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lbriner
He causes so little outrage because his ideas are mostly from cloud cuckoo
land. It's hard to muster a response for something so pathetic. Oh, he also
wants Google and others to bankroll investigative journalism or face a hefty
tax.

~~~
jackweirdy
That latter story expanded upon
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/22/jeremy-
corb...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/22/jeremy-corbyn-
labour-leader-tax-tech-giants-subsidise-bbc-licence-fee)

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no1youknowz
This is absolutely ridiculous and I must say I cannot be surprised coming from
Labour.

What escapes the left completely, is that there is a free market. Which can
and always does a better job than central planning.

Nothing is stopping anyone from buying a cheap laptop, an external webcam if
need be and a decent microphone and then to start streaming to youTube and
other decentralised platforms if they want to do vlogging. Hell, nowadays even
a cheap android phone will do to stream live to YouTube to get the message
out.

There are also cheaper solutions if they want to startup a blog and then
syndicate via medium, wordpress, ghost, tumblr, guest blogs and rss channels.

Bottom line, there is nothing. Absolutely nothing stopping anyone from
providing their voice to the internet and crafting an audience. The government
doesn't need to be involved and those who value a free press should tell him
to butt out in the strongest terms.

Except however and this is what we must be careful of. Is that Labour will
want to impose restrictions on what is acceptable. There is a UK firewall
coming and I'm sure some Labour and Conservative MPs are licking their lips
for the day this comes.

I'm too busy to provide citations but links are out there, go do your own
research.

Now there is a ray of hope. It's coming in the form of decentralised networks
and also Elon Musk's global satellite network. In fact, I will go so far as to
say. In the very near future, space-intranets will come into play. Where
crowd-funded projects will elect to launch satellites that are outside of
government control and mobile phones will have dual capabilities. The first to
connect to the internet and the second to be on the space-internet with no
government oversight.

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comice
"What escapes the left completely, is that there is a free market. Which can
and always does a better job than central planning."

It might escape them, or it might not be universally true.

You might not be from the UK but surely you're aware of the BBC, which
provides extremely high quality media and raises the bar here for the "free
market". Our media companies here are better because of the existence of the
BBC.

~~~
harel
That is true, but there has to be a balance between public and commercial, and
"balance" is a lacking feature with most (if not all) political parties, and
in particular with Labour at the moment (this idea beggars belief and is an
example of that). Come to think of it, Balance is a lacking feature in the
world right now in general.

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richliss
Don't trust politicians.

He's taking advantage of the public's frustrations with their privacy being
invaded by FB to propose a tool that would ultimately be made in his image.

The only way a political leader or party should get involved is by
popularising existing open and ideally decentralised platforms and suggesting
laws where non-governmental semi-randomised working groups review source code
to check that privacy and security are being maintained and not coerced.

but of course, its not about democracy it's about rightthink

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comice
Wasn't there a country that ran an XMPP chat server or similar for it's
citizens? I'm trying to find the details but failing. I'm sure I read about it
in the last couple of years.

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billpg
"Do you honestly believe that Britain is better off outside of the EU?"

[You have been banned from CorbynBook]

~~~
timrichard
1983 - 2015 : Jeremy would answer yes. 2015 - present : Would answer no, or be
evasive.

He spent the vast majority of his political career aligned with the values of
his mentor, Tony Benn.

~~~
billpg
He chose evasive.

(See recent Channel 4 News video. Alas, I don't have a link to hand.)

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telaport
I wonder if he realizes he's actually proposing a government funded global CDN
- or that for it to have a usable low-latency and storage capacity for
billions of users would cost billions of pounds in infrastructure cost if it
were to actually be at the scale and level of success of Facebook...

Nah... of course not! These are the same idiots who think leaving the EU is a
great idea!

~~~
comice
why would a public UK social network need a global CDN and storage capacity
for billions of users?

