If we would actually like to implement a town square online, here are some ideas.
Spontaneously, I am unsure there would be much reason to do so. But thinking it through might bring home the point of this whole argument.
As postulated by many before me, strict identification of all users would be fundamental.
Today, there are many third-party services offering personal identification. This should be technically feasible. Since those services are all costly, this feature's financing needs to be considered. At its most basic level, it would require some "joining fee" for new users.
This is an interesting one. Basically, the platform would always only display posts that are posted right now, and they would disappear permanently thereafter.
There are a few details to be considered:
- If a user opens the platform, the platform should be completely empty. It is then filled by new posts being posted in real time. Alternatively: at the beginning, would posts by concurrent users who have just posted something already be visible?
- When would posts disappear? After a certain time? Would that time be a function of the size or length of the post? Or does it stay on an individuals screen until the user leaves it?
- Whatever it would be, there must be a time after which any posts disappear completely, from every screen, every log file etc.
- Would scraping need to be made impossible? What about taking screenshots? I would argue this could be treated analogously to the actual town square: if any copy is taken, the poster should know about it: who took the copy, including that user's full identity.
On the platform's screen (that's empty when a user comes up to it), posts could be prioritized by some metric of "reputation" or popularity and "upvotes" by also concurrently present users.
Making the social graph is technically feasible for normal users. Making this safe from hackers or the platform itself goes beyond my personal understanding of cryptographic methods.
That's the 65 thousand dollar question!
Obviously, the best and easiest but probably unrealistic option would be for the users to pay a subscription to be on the platform.
Another option would be to get this global "town square" to be financed by an international body like the united nation.