Canada

I'm always amazed about the lack of conversation around nationalizing telecom. We have sasktel as a great example of how it can work, and hydroquebec as a great historical representation of the benefits of publicizing infrastructure. Seems about time to start recognizing internet as a necessary utility that the government directly provides to the people.

Privately-owned social media already took way too much space for the online discourse, to a point where the government is unable to effectively communicate crucial information to its citizens when needed.

They need to take it back, and establish a foundation on open standards and protocols. Our government should strive for openness and accessibility.

It's hard work to deploy and maintain at scale, but it's better than the status quo.

We need this everywhere, not just in Canada. A public google maps would do wonders, especially with the government’s ability to communicate important geographical live data (road work, wildfires, etc.)

This is what I've been wanting in the US for ages. Many of our laws and rights are effectively useless because most modern life is conducted online, entirely within a private entities domain. My ability to communicate with loved ones, operating my business, and shopping for goods and services can all be dependent on the whims of a handful of rich executives. People who can suddenly change their policies and drastically damage my ability to operate my business or interact with the economy.

It's extremely shortsighted to allow private companies near total control of money movement, communication and modern business practices.

Ah, and in there lies the rub, Governments are not in the business of developing new technology anymore, it's been farmed out to the private sector, and the private sector wants to make a profit off of their inventions, so the Government must use private sector technology whether it's physical computer hardware, to operating systems, to web hosting, even open source has to run on something, and private sector tech is always advancing which means Governments must use advancing private sector tech. The dream of detaching completely from private sector tech and not be "beholden to private interests" only works if there are no private interests and all tech development is performed by the state, because private sector tech, the good goods, the new shit, the stuff everybody wants to use will by it's very nature be beholden to private interests.