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> As a social media user, you should have the right to leave a platform that you are not satisfied with... Furthermore, if users decide to leave a platform, the

by tomxor 9y ago

> As a social media user, you should have the right to leave a platform that you are not satisfied with... Furthermore, if users decide to leave a platform, they should be able to easily, efficiently, and freely take their uploaded information away and move it to a different one in a usable format. Data is not the one thing stopping people leaving facebook... friends are. This force stopping people leaving is the same one that drove social media into a monopoly - there is no cross platform protocol. Platforms do not communicate with each other like email clients. In this scenario the very nature of communication encourages people gather into a single large group for convenience (if it wasn't facebook it would have been another). The abuse of a company in such a position is inevitable. The _question_ is not going to be how can we make a protocol now (it's too late, facebook doesn't care), the question is how long will it take for enough people to become disgusted enough to switch to something more open where protocols could be developed, or where the platform is open source anyway and corporate forces are not an issue.

amelius 9y ago
> the question is how long will it take for enough people to become disgusted enough to switch to something more open where protocols could be developed, or where the platform is open source anyway and corporate forces are not an issue. There are some other options: - Phone makers create a "message center", a central place where emails and feeds are shown. Facebook must now adhere to these standards, and they lose their "gatekeeper" position. - Someone develops an API to interact with facebook on behalf of a user. This API performs a live export of friends, feeds, etc, so that other applications can use them. After a while, people will use those applications instead of facebook itself, and are ready to leave facebook.
- exodust 9y ago
  Yes good ideas. Hhonestly I thought we'd have it by now. I've been waiting to have my social account outside of Facebook that could connect with contacts who "live" inside its walls. Why is everyone so happy to be with one company? Why are they happy to allow one company to manage their social connections and notifications for life? Social connection technology shouldn't be tethered to one company, everyone huddled under its "protective" wing. That is typical early 21st century thinking. It's eco-system lock-in mentality, which works against users in the end. I heard a journalist recently call Facebook the "modern day telephone" (Leigh Sales, ABC), which is a stupid thing to say. Facebook is not the technology, it's a service that uses modern technologies. Imagine if there was only one phone company or ISP everyone in the world used. Not a great scenario for competition, innovation, safety, privacy and open standards evolution. We need those new protocols and ways to connect by easily talking between social media platforms.

by tomxor 9y ago

amelius 9y ago

> the question is how long will it take for enough people to become disgusted enough to switch to something more open where protocols could be developed, or where the platform is open source anyway and corporate forces are not an issue. There are some other options: - Phone makers create a "message center", a central place where emails and feeds are shown. Facebook must now adhere to these standards, and they lose their "gatekeeper" position. - Someone develops an API to interact with facebook on behalf of a user. This API performs a live export of friends, feeds, etc, so that other applications can use them. After a while, people will use those applications instead of facebook itself, and are ready to leave facebook.

exodust 9y ago
Yes good ideas. Hhonestly I thought we'd have it by now. I've been waiting to have my social account outside of Facebook that could connect with contacts who "live" inside its walls. Why is everyone so happy to be with one company? Why are they happy to allow one company to manage their social connections and notifications for life? Social connection technology shouldn't be tethered to one company, everyone huddled under its "protective" wing. That is typical early 21st century thinking. It's eco-system lock-in mentality, which works against users in the end. I heard a journalist recently call Facebook the "modern day telephone" (Leigh Sales, ABC), which is a stupid thing to say. Facebook is not the technology, it's a service that uses modern technologies. Imagine if there was only one phone company or ISP everyone in the world used. Not a great scenario for competition, innovation, safety, privacy and open standards evolution. We need those new protocols and ways to connect by easily talking between social media platforms.