I believe we need dedicated spaces for political discussion that are not based on algorithms optimized for engagement (aka outrage). Lemmy has the advantage that the algorithms ordering content are pretty easy to understand and are not driven by the profit incentives that require maximizing user engagement over all else.
In my opinion, Lemmy lacks two things to facilitate being this public square today. The first is a way to limit bots or bad actors from participating in discussions. To my knowledge the bot problem has not been solved on this platform. (Please correct me if I’m wrong). The second is that some of the people who need to participate in these discussions aren’t on Lemmy.
I believe both of these issues could be fixed by governments hosting their own instances and requiring identification from that country to participate on the platform. An ‘official’ place for representatives and constituents to converse should resolve second issue. I think just a few key people actively participating in discussions would be enough to start this transituon. The ID will make many people nervous, and we should be wary of ways in which governments could abuse this power. I don’t know of a better way to reduce bot influence on public discussions though.
This next bit is American specific (sorry). Having the government host the instance would make it subject to the first amendment, so it should be difficult to silence views through moderation if the constitution still means anything. Even though SCOTUS seems to ignore it, I believe it’s in our best interest to act as if the constitution still works the way we want it to. To act otherwise is to concede its power.
Yes but why Lemmy? There are more mature forum softwares. Your proposal doesn’t benefit from federation and doesn’t benefit from a UI optimised for discussing external links. You can of course continue using your real-ID account and interact with the Fediverse that way but no one else is doing real-ID so I don’t see that as a positive.
You can fix bots by using real id and giving up all your privacy. Sounds like a bad idea.
I was assuming you’d make an account with the ID for the govt instance and use anonymous accounts for all other browsing. At least that’s what I would do.
My government originated chat control. Not a chance.
That said, I definitely think the government should get the fuck away from twitter and host their own mastodon for official communication if they think updating a website is too much work.
tldr
This would just end up being Facebook in the long run.
Yes i would…
Afterall, my governemnt already issue me an id and much more than that.
Would I use it as my only or main Lemmy instance? Surely not.
I would use it only for government related stuff and express none of my political views.
It is the responsibility of every other instance to defederate from them.
How many of those instances defederated from Threads?
lol. Fucking no
Of fucking course not.
That sounds like an awful idea lmao. I would never.
ID requirement is terrible for everyone but that especially seems like you’re limiting this to citizens or at least people who have managed to get appropriate immigration documents, which is a difficult and obstructive process that many migrants haven’t got yet. Plus a lot of countries make it hard to get ID without a fixed address.
One thing that would be nice is if we can know that we’re actually talking to people from the same country as us and that the different accounts represent different people. But I think something like a web of trust is preferable for that purpose.
I’m not familiar with web of trust. What does that mean?
no, i think neither government nor corporation should have any spots. let lemmy be by the people and for the people.
I want no media nor communication directly ran by the government
fuck no
I wouldn’t make my worst enemies use it
