PBS headquarters in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia
An article by former Tumblr executive Mark Coatney uses the analogy of Public Broadcasting Television or PBS, to argue for creating a similarly not-for-profit public social network, protected from a corporate takeover, rather than trying to regulate or split social networks currently plagued with disinformation, hypersegmented advertising and toxic content. This would mean social networks where people would have to register with their real identity, like a library card or a driver’s license, but could still publish anonymously or using a pseudonym to enable freedom of expression to avoid trolling activity.
The idea makes sense in principle: many countries operate public television to try to provide non-partisan information (with very variable degrees of success on that), and by extension, a social network operated in this way would provide a platform for the exchange of all kinds of information without corporate interests in search of visibility contaminating it.
The problem with this analogy is that public television is a unidirectional medium by which content can be supervised, that has far from universal reach and that cannot be used for openly commercial purposes. PBS offers anything from purely informative content, lengthy real-time connections to City Hall, documentaries, gatherings and discussions on topics of all kinds and even training content, but viewers simply tune in and watch: there is little space for participation. Infrastructure and production costs are financed by a combination of government or state funds, the support of foundations and even donations from users.
In contrast, a social network is characterized by content provided by the users themselves; it is bidirectional and the viewer can be the producer, meaning conflicts of interest are harder to control: how can companies or corporate interests be kept at bay? By making sure these companies do not find a way to generate content through people willing to do so, either for money, or for the belief that in doing so, they contribute in some way to a public service or general interest. How can somebody be prevented from openly publishing advertising content? It’s a complex area, difficult to supervise and monitor. How can those who break the rules be kept out? If not even Donald Trump can block critics from his Twitter account, how could we manage to kick out users who misuse a hypothetically public social network?
Could a public social platform work? It’s an interesting idea, but I sincerely believe that the analogy of public television is not the right one and doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny. The question is not, as Coatney argues, whether people would use it or not, but rather how they would use it, and fundamentally, how we would prevent them from misusing it. The problem with social networks is not advertising as such, but what isn’t, such as manipulation and disinformation, using people to spread a particular message.
Social networks are here to stay. I think that development of social networks in the first two decades of this century have proved that there is value in offering people such a tool. But putting it under control and avoiding its instrumentalization may be more complex than some think. This is an idea that’s going to need a lot more thought.
