Report

How can governments regulate social media for the public good?

This report from UK think tank Nesta highlights the need for innovative public policy and digital interventions, led by institutions like the BBC.

As part of Options for the UK – Nesta’s new home for ideas and radical thinking on policy challenges – Tony Curzon Price argues that our current regulatory approach to regulating social media is broken.

Attempting to tweak the incentives of platforms that profit through the status quo is insufficient to stem the profound externalities that marketised platforms produce.

Instead, Britain needs to use its unique institutions in a more radical way. Ahead of the Royal Charter renewal next year, the BBC now faces a critical crossroads: it could lead the way in building democratic alternatives and pioneer a democratic cyberspace, or risk losing its place at the centre of our public life.

This report sets out a radical idea for how the BBC could take a more active role in prototyping and scaling alternatives for digital public spaces.