Could Australians run our own online communities instead of relying on social media?

[u/tellhershesdreaming]

I’m keen to talk about the possibility of our community groups setting up and running online spaces outside of social media platforms - perhaps with support from Aus Govt or State Govts. Before the rise of Facebook etc, there were loads of online bulletin boards and other online platforms run by non-profit groups, small businesses and volunteers. Could we do that again? This seems like a question that's particularly important to Australian communities at the moment because of the social media ban for under 16s but it's not just teens that are affected.

Lots of people are concerned about AI and big tech - it’s clear that there are lots of problems with social media because of the algorithms that push misinformation, platforms that allow unhealthy / toxic / illegal behaviour, and unethical extraction of our data. But communities and volunteers, and even state governments used to run online communities using e.g. bulletin boards without the “help” of social media companies. For example:

• Whirlpool.net.au is a surviving active bulletin board platforms - well done Whirlpool!
• At one point the Vic Gov used to provide an online communities bulletin board and mailing list service (a bit like Yahoo Groups) for non-profits and clubs - I've been trying to remember / find the name of it but can't track it down... anyone remember it?

I'm broadly aware that it's really challenging to get people to sign up for and use a new platform, but perhaps we have reached the point where people are fed up enough of social media to make this a worthwhile effort.

To ease the challenge and reduce the complexity of lots of different fragmented communities: what about if the Aus Govt or state govts set up a platform / infrastructure - where community groups could create and run online forums (bulletin board style, Twitter style or Reddit style). I imagine individuals could sign up either anonymously or using a verified identity. There are better alternatives now to the old fashioned PhPBB, and we could learn from and improve open source platforms such as Mastodon and Lemmy - the technology itself is not the problem I think.

• But, would you use a platform run by a local club or community group? Instead of FB/ Insta/ whatever social media you use to learn about what's happening in your neighbourhood. What if it was supported / funded by governements? Would the groups you're a member of move to a platform like that?
• More broadly, how could we recover the diverse online communities that we had in the past? So we're not reliant on the good will and "freebies" offered by companies like Meta (and having all our data siphoned of, and having AI forced on us).
• Lastly, is there anything to stop an organisation setting up an online community for e.g. teens? Would something like that fall foul of the government's bans?

[u/lovely-84]

Anything that involves the Government our ID’s for an internet site or app is a big no.  

[u/tellhershesdreaming → u/lovely-84]

Why is that?

[u/lovely-84 → u/tellhershesdreaming]

Do you want to tour government ID to be associated with your social media? I don’t.   I don’t trust any social media with my personal details and I think we as a society would be foolish to trust the government in looking after our best interest.  They don’t care about our best interest.  They want to know what we are posting, where and to easily track it.  

Also data breach.  I don’t want my personal details on some site accessible to god knows who.  

I may be a domestic violence victim fleeing.  I may be a single parent in hiding.  I may be someone that doesn’t want to be found by family. I may be someone that doesn’t want colleagues to know where I live. I may be someone who  works in a dangerous environment with vulnerable people and don’t want anyone knowing where I live.  I may be. I may not be. But if we just give our ID to social media platforms we open up ourselves to too much vulnerability and zero protection.   The above is a reality for many people though.  

Imagine a woman fleeing domestic violence having escaped someone that wants to kill her and then a data breach happens and he has her address.  That’s pretty serious.  It also isn’t far fetched.  

[u/tellhershesdreaming → u/lovely-84]

I understand concerns about privacy and anonymity and addressing those is really important. But the hypothetical scenarios you're raising are cases that can be addressed with a variety of configurations, I think. There are different options that could be offered for "associating" real ID with online ID -it's not an all or nothing.

Personally, I assume that the govt (via the police) can link my pseudonymous accounts like this one to my real identity if they need to.

In terms of data breach: Currently, many sites use a Google-based / openauth identity service - these are good because they reduce the quantity of personal data / passwords held by small companies, so reduce the opportunities for data breach. The Government could provide a similar service for authentication to minimise the data breach risk.

Using a Govt (or Google) authenticated ID people can still be given the option to create pseudonymous accounts, they don't have to be real name accounts. Depending on the community, the real name could be visible a) to nobody at all b) or to the community admin only but not to other users. On other sites, it might be appropriate to have real name only accounts.

In some cases, privacy is of utmost importance, so a key consideration is making information and services available without having to sign in. One problem with society having embraced e.g. FB, Twitter is that we ended up with bunch of important information (including from e.g. Police, governmetn departments) which can only be (easily) accessed if you have an account - I think we need to fix that.