I use Facebook like 32 million other Canadians out of the 34 million who are 15 or older. I don’t like the platform; it’s a cesspool. The feed is just slop to capture attention at any cost to maximize advertising revenue, including hate speech.
I’m only on there because there is no viable alternative for the Jeep Club. We have over 2,000 locals as members and there’s no way those people would have found us without that platform. Facebook also has Marketplace.
There used to be alternatives; Canada’s Kijiji for Marketplace, and Meetup for organizing events. Both became more obscure as users shifted from using websites to apps. Too few had the appetite to install apps for something as infrequent as searching for a used item or getting details for an event.
A role for the government
Had the Internet been around in the 1950s, I think you would have seen the government introduce non-profit alternatives in online spaces. Much like governments created libraries and community centers and parks.
I recognize that today’s government would never introduce novel types of third spaces. The notion of community and pooling our resources to lift each other up no longer resonates amidst declining individual prosperity.
Political parties have already spent decades offloading social responsibilities to for-profit companies, or downloading them onto lower governments who lack the revenue to address the need, or simply placed on individuals who don’t have the means and are judged for it.
Nonetheless, I still think that we should have a taxpayer funded alternative to platforms like Facebook. An option that is incentivized to create the best experience for people with the allocated funds. That’s not the case with Facebook where users and their data are the product being sold.
Yes there would be questions about moderation and censorship given government involvement, but those are not new. Libraries and the CBC already contend with them. Plus the private sector isn’t a beacon of liberty here: Facebook has already been censoring news in Canada for years not to mention banning content from women and minorities who get a little too open for the comfort of its American billionaire owners and the puritanical politicians they solicit.
A taxpayer-funded alternative would be accountable to our needs and not those of investors. I believe we can do better, together.