19.6. Imagining Alternatives

Now try thinking about different ways online social media could work.

Are these alternatives good ideas? 🤷

Reflect on these prompts and try to work out what the consequences would be for different ways of social media working:

• What if government regulations said that social media sites weren’t allowed to make money based on personal data / targeted advertising?

  • What other business models could they use? How would social media sites be different?

• What if government regulations were made to encourage a free market by requiring that users could switch social media sites easily (interoperability [s57]). How would this work?

  • Would you be able to move all your data? Would you still be able to see the content your friends post on the site you used to be on?

• What if there were a social media site funded by the government as a government service (e.g., democratic socialism)?

  • What could this social media site do differently? What do you think would work well, what would work poorly?

  • Private companies are allowed to restrict speech in ways government entities are not. How would this impact content moderation if government funds were used?

• What if social media sites were publicly funded or crowd-funded (like NPR for radio, and PBS for TV, Wikipedia, Archive of Our Own for fan fiction)? Note: Mastodon is trying to do this.