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707 points patd | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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ALittleLight ◴[] No.23332879[source]
I think a better solution for Trump, since he obviously doesn't have the power to 'close' social media, would be to create a competitor. There should be a public social media company, tied to real identity, that would support something like Twitter. You could post your thoughts or essays there, follow people, comment, etc. Put out a request for design proposals, the emphasis should be on sharing thoughts attributed to your real identity, keeping your account safe, recovering passwords, and things like that.

Having a national social media would have the side benefit of allowing a better identity system than social security numbers which are a travesty. I have to share my social security number with many people, but also somehow keep it safe? Instead, I should have a public and private key pair, and this could be associated with my National Social Media account for a single identity, and sign messages with my private key if I need to apply for a loan, or a lease, or whatever.

The National Social Media account could enshrine the same protections afforded by the US constitution - free speech, you cannot be censored top down, only by people blocking you. The government cannot spy on your usage patterns or edit your messages, and so on.

If Trump were to get such a thing created, and it worked reasonably well, and he started using it exclusively instead of Twitter, I think it would gain a lot of traction. I know I would try it out.

replies(2): >>23332991 #>>23332997 #
1. RandomTisk ◴[] No.23332997[source]
I'm not opposed to it, but I imagine you would have a lot of people very hesitant to put their opinions on record with a system that is controlled by the government. The big benefit with Twitter is it's co-mingled with citizen and government employees alike and I'm not sure how you'd promote a government run system. Governments needs a subpoena to access records from a private company (theoretically) but if that layer of protection isn't there because the system is owned by a government, then I doubt anyone would want to use it for more than press releases, wedding announcements, births, obituaries and things like that.