Radical think-tank plan for ABC to take Facebook role

The ABC needs to be ‘reimagined’ to allow it to challenge Facebook’s stranglehold on online community hubs, according to a proposal.

The Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology says the ABC should reduce its current reliance on Facebook to manage the national broadcaster’s audience community groups. Picture: AFP

The role of the ABC needs to be “reimagined” in the digital age to allow the national broadcaster to challenge Facebook’s stranglehold on online community hubs, according to a radical proposal by a leading left-wing think tank.

Under the plan, put forward in a discussion paper to be released on Thursday by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology, the ABC would reduce its current reliance on Facebook to manage the national broadcaster’s audience community groups, and instead separate online hubs would be created for community-generated content.

“The reimagining of a public square for Australia is urgent. Every year that Facebook embeds itself deeper into civil society and its central role in our information ecosystem is a year where the prospect of an alternative model becomes harder,” the paper says.

“A public interest, publicly funded social network is best suited to serve the national interest online, as an alternative to commercial or state-run models.

“This paper shows that many of the elements required to build a new public digital infrastructure are already available.

“Public broadcasters like the ABC are obvious places to start when exploring the feasibility of building a public social network with existing infrastructure, systems and, critically, a network of users which can be immediately applied towards this concept.”

The effective outsourcing of community engagement by the ABC to Facebook has had dire consequences for the concept of a viable “public square”, according to the paper’s authors Peter Lewis and Jordan Guiao.

“More recently, Facebook’s reticence to take responsibility for the harmful content on its platform has reinforced the impression that this is a not a platform suitable to house Australia’s public discourse.

“During the Facebook Australia news ban, many were forced to ask ‘what is the alternative?’, and were confronted by the answer of ‘none’.

“It has become urgent, then, that Australians take steps to mitigate the risks of relying on Facebook as their preferred public square. This paper proposes that Australians reimagine what an online public square can be — one that values community and democracy, one that is independent of profit incentives, one that does not monitor participants for commercial ends, and one that is accountable to the Australian public.”

But the paper recognises that staff at the national broadcaster would likely resist moves to reclaim the areas of community engagement that have been claimed by Facebook in recent years.

“To date, the ABC has seen ­itself as a broadcast and news generation outlet. Given the environment of budget cuts, it may seem odd to some internal members to invest more in community roles rather than employ more journalists,” it says.

“This zero-sum mentality is difficult to discourage given the unstable budget environment. But ultimately ABC staff and supporters must overcome limited perceptions of the ABC as just a news-generating broadcaster, but more towards a community gathering public service if this project is to succeed.”

Mr Lewis told The Australian: “Facebook puts itself forward as a public space but it’s really a private mall where users are observed and manipulated for profit.

“We have seen how Facebook’s algorithms exploit our desire to connect, corralling us into tribes, amplifying the loudest voices and privileging engagement over truth.”