[75dvtwin]

Can we say the same thing about social media companies ?

I would also suggest that 'owned by public sector' does not mean 'public good'.

Even when a private corporation influenced/directed/controlled by federal authorities -- it is problematic.

I do not know of a political system that can effectively check federal government so that it stays for public good.

Money-sponsored or various threatened-by-force election models are not effective at checking that premise.

[klyrs]

> Can we say the same thing about social media companies?

Gotta be "good" to be a "public good."

[lapinot]

> 'owned by public sector' does not mean 'public good' What does mean public good then?

I believe you're misreading GP's comment and playing on words. "owned by public sector" doesn't have to mean "being run by people elected through general elections". You seem to refer to federal government so probably you're referring to US government and how your opinion is that it is inherently bad. That's another debate i don't have anything to say on (not US myself) and i believe you have a bigger problem if you don't trust your government. Now tons of "public sector" enterprises can well enough be run in relatively closed loop. The solution is quite easy: have dedicated taxes for dedicated such enterprises, instead of all the taxes going into a general budget at the hand of general politics. This is how public healthcare, pension or stuff like water used to work in eg france, before it started to get teared into pieces. They are self-funded basically by people paying for the service, but since we have realized basically everyone needs it, paying is mandatory, and the amount you pay is proportional to your salary: the so-called salary-contributions and company-contributions.

[neodypsis]

In my country, many of the state-controlled public services (e.g., electricity, water and sewage) are very expensive due to mismanagement. Others, like public healthcare are mediocre (don't scale well), albeit costly. Many of these entities suffer from being exposed to political influence.

[techdragon]

This being the crux of the problem. Obtaining the benefit of state owned/controlled operations for such things without allowing them to be ruined by constant political interference in sync with the routine electoral cycles. A public health system or sewage or electricity is a multi decade resource of benefit to several generations of citizens… but politicians tend to think about the next election not their old age and future generations needs. It really requires and active and engaged citizenry to make proper operation a priority over the normal sort of political pandering.

[mynameisnull]

Depends on the state, sort of like the quality of private companies vary and if you’ve ever lived in a part of you’re own country where the grocery stores are crap and later you move and their very competitive and a comparative delight. However, one has to experience the difference themselves to understand this fact I believe. There are a huge multitude of factors at play.

Many of us (me included for most of my life, hell maybe I’m doing it now), tend to over extrapolate how much our own experience is the experience everywhere and that what we see must be fitting some logical rule or trend. Reality is annoyingly more complex than we like.

[Enginerrrd]

>Can we say the same thing about social media companies ?

Good god no. One of the benefits of the Twitter-Musk saga is that it proved that the feds really were meddling quite a bit with social media companies requesting censorship. You want to give them the keys entirely?