Publicly Run Social Media – A Solution for Europe?

TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are not neutral public spaces. Designed to maximise attention and engagement, these platforms play a major role in shaping public opinion in Europe. They amplify misinformation, polarisation and hate speech, while also encouraging patterns of use that harm mental health.

The EU has begun to respond through the Digital Services Act. Yet success up to now is limited.

Could Europe build a public-service social media model, inspired by public broadcasting – social media that protect democratic debate, strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty and offer a healthier online environment?

This event will explore that question and introduce a European Citizens’ Initiative calling for a European public-service social media infrastructure.

With Lukáš Mikulecký, Co-Leader of the European Citizens’s Initiative “European Public Social Network”.

New! 1:1 Conversations! After our one-hour open discussion, we invite you to stay for another 30 minutes. You’ll be paired up randomly and answer four questions together in a one-on-one conversation.

The idea behind: meet new people from across Europe and exchange ideas in a more personal setting. The breakout rooms will stay open for as long as you like.

I think it would be better to have these public spaces be outside the control of foreign tech companies, but I'm also unsure whether it would be better to have one centralized EU social media network. I think that the Fediverse (such as Mastodon) could be relevant here. How do other people feel about this?

EU citizens initiative: https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2026/000004_en

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[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Could Europe build a public-service social media model, inspired by public broadcasting

Sure. The government owned broadcasting is working great... not being abused at all. #JustEasternEuropeThings

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Where is it abused? I'm sure there are countries where this holds true, but there are many European countries where I'll take public broadcasting a hundred times of anything else

[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Slovakia and hungary. Not sure how poland is doing these days, but there was an infamous news segment a few years ago that got international attention, because it was basically 5 minutes of simping for Andrzej Duda. Right before the elections.

I recognize the quality of work people in these institutions achieve. Not everything they put out is a political order, they still do decent journalism. It's just that every now and then, you need to be aware of who controlls them. About what they say, or most importantly, what they don't say when it comes to reporting on certain topics.

It might seem nice to have a funcioning "public" media, but all I see is a ticking time bomb, waiting for one bad election...

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What you want and need is government funded, yet independent media companies. Basically, government should fund an independent media org that can fund news outlets with a limited set of rules like "Must be as truthful and unbiased as possible", etc.

[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

government funded, yet independent

🤨

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Yes, that actually is possible. You could have the government fund news and journalism directly, but that indeed would invite the government to curate the news. If you have an independent non profit in the middle that has as core mission to fund ALL news and journalism, as long as it is independent and unbiased, then it becomes much harder for the government to control details of the news.

The org, in its turn, can then dictate that all news outlets that receive funding must be factual and unbiased.

[–] ozoned@piefed.social 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Awesome! Joining this. Thanks for the share.

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's on Zoom, here's the invite https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87415126197

[–] ozoned@piefed.social 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thank you for posting it. I was waiting in the wrong place. :D

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

I saw you joined it, what do you think about it so far? They mentioned non transparency of algorithms, and I feel like FOSS would help a lot for that. They also mentioned more regulation, but I'm worried that might lead to regulatory capture, disspropionately affecting smaller communities while big tech remains largely unimpacted.

Also a bit ironic they use gmail lol

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

Also a bit ironic they use gmail lol

and zoom

[–] ozoned@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago

I was the American that spoke to and asked about allowing government control. I enjoy taking about this stuff. Though EU doesn't directly affect me, I think we all need to work on this together.

[–] Pinetten@pawb.social 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Definitely hope it's on Fediverse on some level.

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They seemed unfamiliar with the workings of Mastodon, so it doesn't seem like it. There doesn't seem to be technical vision behind the proposal yet.

[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There doesn't seem to be technical vision behind the proposal yet.

Jesus Christ, you've just savagely described the europe in a nutshell 😕

[–] j_z@feddit.nu 1 points 2 days ago

Even though this is a clear illustration of the level of maturity of these developments in European politics, I think it’s positive that the ideas exist outside just (parts of) the tech community

[–] JangleJack@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

They could add tremendous focal points for debate / discussion, but I would rather have them own only their topics than own the whole social graph. I would not trust any org to own the social graph, so yes Fedi. I would really like govs to secure my digital rights via zero knowledge proofs of things like citizenship, age, etc.. Give me a way to reveal only what a particular service needs to know.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Yesh