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This is an unfortunate truth. It's just so frustrating that the network effect means that moving off of Facebook means loosing a whole bunch of connections that

This is an unfortunate truth. It's just so frustrating that the network effect means that moving off of Facebook means loosing a whole bunch of connections that won't go elsewhere.

cookiecaper 10y ago
It wouldn't be this way if we fixed our technology access and intellectual property laws. There are a lot of phenomena in the ethos right now that people find perplexing and internally recognize don't really make sense, but they have a hard time figuring out what causes it. Those people are intentionally deprived of the information necessary to make the connection to the laws that enforce extant monopolies. The network effect works the way it does because we have granted super-restrictive monopoly rights that prevent competition. There was once a company that tried to allow you to export your data from Facebook. It was called Power Ventures. They were sued and shut down by Facebook. The corporate veil was pierced and the founder was found personally liable for $3 million in supposed damages. The technology exists, but we've made laws for companies like Facebook to make sure that their monopolies are not threatened.
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  When you create things with Facebook, Facebook owns that data. It's in the ToS and they have the right to tell you what you can or cannot do with it. If that's a problem for you don't use Facebook. Networks exist because not everyone is an admin and web developer and wants to build their own website, and unless you own the pipe to the servers, the servers themselves, the software running on the server, and so on you have exactly whatever rights your provider of choice says you have and not one iota more.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    This is not correct. Courts in the US are very dubious of automatic rights transfers and I doubt a ToS that included them would fly. ToS boilerplate usually grants the company an unlimited license to the content, but they do not own it. The original rightsholder, which, in the case of status updates, family photos, etc., is usually the person who posted it, continues to hold the copyright, and thus, should be allowed to download it as he or she sees fit. But a judge ruled that Power Ventures had violated a variety of tech access and intellectual property laws by creating a scraper that allowed just that: a scraper to easily export his data out of Facebook. >Networks exist because not everyone is an admin and web developer and wants to build their own website, and unless you own the pipe to the servers, the servers themselves, the software running on the server, and so on you have exactly whatever rights your provider of choice says you have and not one iota more. That's not technically correct, but we'll accept it for purposes of argument because it's not super far off for some access modes. I'm saying that it doesn't have to be that way. A lot of people hear about these things, acknowledge the injustice and weirdness in them, and then just move on with their day, seemingly believing that it's something that can't be altered. We can alter it. We don't have to grant Facebook an arbitrary monopoly. We don't have to allow them to restrict us from gathering the data that we rightfully own just because we've shared it on their platform. Let's change it. It's difficult to change and difficult to make people aware of this situation because, obviously, incumbent interests want to keep their monopolies, so they spend and lobby and produce and proclaim to try and keep them, and to make people think that there's nothing that can be done about it. It's not that way in real life.

This is an unfortunate truth. It's just so frustrating that the network effect means that moving off of Facebook means loosing a whole bunch of connections that won't go elsewhere.

cookiecaper 10y ago

It wouldn't be this way if we fixed our technology access and intellectual property laws. There are a lot of phenomena in the ethos right now that people find perplexing and internally recognize don't really make sense, but they have a hard time figuring out what causes it. Those people are intentionally deprived of the information necessary to make the connection to the laws that enforce extant monopolies. The network effect works the way it does because we have granted super-restrictive monopoly rights that prevent competition. There was once a company that tried to allow you to export your data from Facebook. It was called Power Ventures. They were sued and shut down by Facebook. The corporate veil was pierced and the founder was found personally liable for $3 million in supposed damages. The technology exists, but we've made laws for companies like Facebook to make sure that their monopolies are not threatened.

FussyZeus 10y ago
When you create things with Facebook, Facebook owns that data. It's in the ToS and they have the right to tell you what you can or cannot do with it. If that's a problem for you don't use Facebook. Networks exist because not everyone is an admin and web developer and wants to build their own website, and unless you own the pipe to the servers, the servers themselves, the software running on the server, and so on you have exactly whatever rights your provider of choice says you have and not one iota more.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  This is not correct. Courts in the US are very dubious of automatic rights transfers and I doubt a ToS that included them would fly. ToS boilerplate usually grants the company an unlimited license to the content, but they do not own it. The original rightsholder, which, in the case of status updates, family photos, etc., is usually the person who posted it, continues to hold the copyright, and thus, should be allowed to download it as he or she sees fit. But a judge ruled that Power Ventures had violated a variety of tech access and intellectual property laws by creating a scraper that allowed just that: a scraper to easily export his data out of Facebook. >Networks exist because not everyone is an admin and web developer and wants to build their own website, and unless you own the pipe to the servers, the servers themselves, the software running on the server, and so on you have exactly whatever rights your provider of choice says you have and not one iota more. That's not technically correct, but we'll accept it for purposes of argument because it's not super far off for some access modes. I'm saying that it doesn't have to be that way. A lot of people hear about these things, acknowledge the injustice and weirdness in them, and then just move on with their day, seemingly believing that it's something that can't be altered. We can alter it. We don't have to grant Facebook an arbitrary monopoly. We don't have to allow them to restrict us from gathering the data that we rightfully own just because we've shared it on their platform. Let's change it. It's difficult to change and difficult to make people aware of this situation because, obviously, incumbent interests want to keep their monopolies, so they spend and lobby and produce and proclaim to try and keep them, and to make people think that there's nothing that can be done about it. It's not that way in real life.