From The Maple: Facebook’s reputational crisis in recent weeks is renewing calls for more regulatory oversight over the company and, in some cases, proposals for establishing alternative, democratically controlled social media platforms.
- The Maple spoke with experts about what can be done to rein in the social media giant’s corporate power.
James Turk, director of the Centre of Free Expression at X University, told The Maple:
- “In most other sectors, when one company becomes so large with regard to something that's so important to the public, they often are brought under public control, or public regulation, whether it be hydro electricity or water. Part of the solution, I think, is a requirement that Facebook be more transparent about its algorithm, and there be some regulation.”
Paris Marx, a media Ph.D. student at the University of Auckland and host of the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast, told The Maple that the public sector has a key role to play in building alternatives to Facebook.
- A publicly owned digital co-operative, Marx explained, could create new digital tools and social media platforms, and “ensure that those tools are not designed in ways that are about creating profit for a particular company and locking us into a company's business model, but it's actually around serving the public (and) responding to public needs.”
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