[tarboreus]

A nation state running a social network removes an essential political fig leaf, mainly that these networks are not affiliated with the government. Obviously they've been co-opted, but people tend to ignore that in practice. The government is also technologically slow-moving, which makes it great for large and essential research projects in basic science (like every major advance in the 20th century) but not great for consumer-facing and short-term technological applications in the market.