Taxpayer-funded public television that's already a thing in many European countries could be a decent model. No ads and much better incentive alignment. When you pay for it you are the customer not the goods.
Taxpayer-funded public television that's already a thing in many European countries could be a decent model. No ads and much better incentive alignment. When you pay for it you are the customer not the goods.
What incentive alignment? In my country the publicly founded TV that I'm obligated to pay for each month is completely biased.
Tax founded/public != real/useful.
Also: I am NOT a "customer": since it's tax founded I am EXTORTED to pay for it.
A customer is someone who has the option to CEASE buying it. I do not have that option.
In my country public TV is decent with good programming and neutral political tone.
When we speak of dominant social networks today however they are runaway adtech cesspools, outright owned by malicious actors, or a combination thereof. That recurring "good stuff becomes shit stuff when getting popular" effect that people lament so much is in no small part caused by adverse profit seeking incentives. There is no dopamine, addiction and hence money in keeping your timeline chill, unpolarized, attached to median human reality rather than freak circus and not riling you up with ragebait.
And naturally anything created by man can be undone and subverted and it can be done to public media as well. This risk however does not outweigh a demonstrably pathetic status quo of the fiery pits of existing social media platforms.
So that prevents censorship? Seems like anything critical of the government would not be allowed.
Depends on whether they are reasonably independent. This works pretty well for e.g NRK, YLE, DR etc. Government can’t have a say in short term (less than an election cycle) funding, or who’s leading the Public Service company or similar. There can be no possible leverage from politicians, that’s the key. . The job of public service like any media is to be critical of power. The first sign of a country sliding towards being a non-democracy is political tampering with public service.
Depends on the government. Poland for example was ok with criticising the government on the national tv for many years, until the last swing to "law and order".
So there are no guarantees even if it works without censorship currently.
("law and order" means PiS, the previous rolling party) I think this is the biggest issue - the temptation and the power to take over the national media is always there, and all it takes to dismantle all the checks and balances is one determined filling party.
In the other hand, the US manages to control it's completely privatized media, so maybe being publically funded is not the issue.