Hey, let's nationalize Facebook

By “nationalizing Facebook,” I mean public ownership and at least a majority share at first. When nationalizing the company restores the public trust, that controlling interest could be reduced. There are three very good reasons for this drastic step: It could fix the company’s woeful privacy practices, allow the social network to fulfill its true potential for providing social good, and force it to put its valuable data to work on significant social problems…

Facebook’s data harvesting could be used to improve public policy, yet scholars rarely find the company willing to collaborate on important research questions. Sometimes different scientists unknowingly buy access to the same data, and then duplicate efforts to clean the data for real analysis. A publicly accessible, central way of sharing data would allow better access for social and public health researchers. Or even better, the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health could help manage a clearinghouse for data so that we can all be sure it is properly anonymized and research effort is not wasted. There would be economic benefits, too: As the venerable Economist magazine has argued, making large amounts of public data widely available stimulates creative new businesses ventures.

Users in some parts of the world might panic if Facebook becomes an official part of the U.S. government. But there are plenty of examples of good public investment in media and infrastructure. For instance, citizens around the world benefit from the BBC, and many governments use the public purse to support technology innovation and build up information infrastructure. The public policy benefits of scholarship with Facebook’s “big data” would spread around the world. Having occasional access to anonymous profiles would help democracy activists living in dictatorships. The high—and globally consistent—privacy standards that could be swiftly implemented after nationalization would be good for everyone.