Title: (Not as in &quot;going public&quot;.)<p>Why have we not seen a publicly-operated social network?<p>It strikes me that enabling people to connect with one another is fundamental to most governments as a public service. Cities and states make and fund roadways and public squares and parks. Social networks seem like an approximate digital parallel.<p>Given everything that&#x27;s happened with Facebook and Twitter in the last months, why are there no examples of government-run social networks?<p>(Or, if there are, what are they? How do they work?)<p>edited the title for breadth<p>edit 2: thanks for sounding in! A lot of great answers. To be clear, I didn&#x27;t mean to present this as a leading question. I was curious about the perceived reasons from HN&#x27;s audience.
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