If only the federal government could implement some sort of server that would allow them to self-host social media for officials and prominent candidates. I wish there were some well-known and tested service that other governments were using and they could just implement in the USA.
I don’t think legally the Federal Government is allowed to do that. Maybe if the service is available to everyone. Now that option would be pretty cool. I’m fine with nationalized federated social media hosts.
That sounds pretty shakey. Federal employees have their own email addresses, but you can’t just go ask for a .gov email address, you have to get a job with the government for one. The federal government has plenty of places that only some are allowed to post to. Now, if they were to say, only allow certain people to have accounts with no apperent rhyme or reason that would be grounds for a discrimination lawsuit, but they could simply say “any verified current or former federal elected official, federal department head, or state governor is allowed an account” and expand or shrink the scope as needed. The fediverse honestly makes that so much cleaner than something they host themselves with all of the nuances of what is and isn’t federated, the government could simply configure the federation to meet their legal and liability needs while users can stream in from any fediverse instance
If they build it, will anyone come? Or does private social media only work because the user base is already scrolling endlessly there?
@XeroxCool welcome to fediverse. I’m replying to you from mastodon.
I’m using motion controls!
I’m using the Power Glove!
It’s so bad.
Oh noooo…
Stop using fucking Twitter
Can’t believe Biden let the world know his decision first on Twitter, even before the White house Press office.
Imagine trying winning chess when the board itself plays against you. Twitter/X must be dropped immediately, it’s a censorship-propaganda machine which is now only works for those who control it.
I’m not down with the perpetual victim-blaming against X/Twitter users here on Lemmy.
Sources like campaigns, news outlets, authors, studios, engineers, actors, comedians, etc. post on there because they basically have to – if they want to get the word out, that is.
Consumers go there to read from the sources because they basically have to. While each source may have their own separate blog or whatever, X/Twitter is pretty much the only place that unifies those feeds. (I know, I miss the heyday of RSS too.)
Expecting people to just “take the hit” and go dark on their communications so we can build up alternatives to X/Twitter is not an acceptable recommendation.
What we need to do is:
- Make it illegal to block third-party clients from interoperating with services
- Compel providers of a certain size to expose a first-party API
- Make it legal to reverse-engineer APIs so they can’t just make the first-party API suck and call it a day
- Then we integrate X/Twitter into the fediverse, so you can start using something else and still keep your X/Twitter stuff
What we need to do is: Make it illegal to run a business
Twitter doesn’t owe anyone anything. Kamala could go post anywhere else but she’s not even though the left hates Elon.
The idea that we should pass laws to force twitter to show certain info and expose endpoints to support third party apps is ridiculous. It’s their data and they aren’t putting a gun to anyone’s head.
Passing a law forcing the government to use only FLOSS software for day-to-day activities solves this problem, actually makes sense on a principle level and isn’t a ridiculous overreach of power.
FLOSS software
Lol
‘Lol’ Three simple characters. “FLOSS software? Ridiculous. So DUMB.” He says to himself. Finally a single tap and his snarky comment begins it’s instantaneous travail through countless GPL licensed unix systems to reach his victim - an ignorant commenter on an open-source, federated lemmy instance.
lol
Twitter is not a utility. We really need to stop treating techbro services like utilities. If we feel they actually are utilities, the government can step in and make that claim and the appropriate changes.
If it’s a private company that con do what it wants, like blocking political opponents, it should not be under safe harbor protections.
That’s the point in yelling about this. If Elon wants a private forum for him and his mates, he should also be fully responsible when his mates posts child porn on his servers.
Which safe harbor protections?
Section 230 of the CDA
And the EFF has a primer on Section 230, and several opinion pieces about why nerfing 230 would be a terrible idea:
