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Better than breaking up social networks would be to force them to interoperate on an open protocol. When I first signed up for Facebook I was disappointed that

Better than breaking up social networks would be to force them to interoperate on an open protocol. When I first signed up for Facebook I was disappointed that only other Facebook users could see my account. Then when Google+ came on the scene I thought they'd worked out a way to interoperate with Facebook, but instead Google just wanted their own silo. What we really need is for social networks to interoperate the way email from different providers does. Same goes for chat and audio/video communication. Rather than breaking up Facebook, mandate that they must provide access to other social networks. Use an open protocol, say, Mastadon.

return1 7y ago
> What we really need is for social networks to interoperate the way email from different providers does. And then things will get way, way worse than facebook, because nobody is there to censor anyone, and then the nytimes will be asking to censor the entire internet because reasons. No, please. Let people stick to facebook where they can be herded appropriately.
dominotw 7y ago
sounds like terrible govt interference. Why would they give away their most valuable asset for free.
- Jommi 7y ago
  Because it creates an unfair advantage? If switching costs are high it enables monopolistic power just because of high amount of users, and not because of quality of the platform.
cjslep 7y ago
Nit: Mastodon isn't a protocol. ActivityPub[0] is the protocol. [0] https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/
- michaelbrooks 7y ago
  To add to this, anyone can turn their website into a social network using ActivityPub. For example, if you have a WordPress blog/site then you can use this plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/. This then allows profiles from other networks such as Mastodon to follow, read and comment on your posts or statuses.
- kermitismyhero 7y ago
  I've always found it disturbing how Gargron rarely makes any attempt to disabuse people of the incorrect notion that Mastodon was the start of, and the canonical example of, open and federated social networks. If anyone deserves that sort of credit, it would arguably be Evan Prodromou and the original identica a decade ago. Though I could wrong, and unaware of anyone prior to him working on this sort of federated and open twitter clone.
SamuelAdams 7y ago
Another example: what if cell phone carriers only let you talk / text with people on the same carrier network? Suddenly everyone would need to buy T-Mobile, or Verizon, or Sprint, just to talk to one another. Or carry 4 different sim cards, similar to having multiple accounts. Sounds terrible? Good. That's what Facebook is doing now.
- thebigspacefuck 7y ago
  Facebook lets you share posts from Twitter and Instagram, not sure about what else
  - greedo 7y ago
    Umm, Facebook owns Instagram.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    When you share a post on Twitter or Instagram, you're creating a Facebook share--this isn't an example of an open protocol in any way.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  The problem is that social networking protocols would inherently be much more complex than phone protocols (but it could be done). Moreover, some body would have to standardize those protocols as well as discovering some way of preventing spam. My hunch that I know get more spam on my phone number than either my email or my Facebook account because phones still have open points of entry.
  - theseatoms 7y ago
    The open protocol could start small and gradually grow over time, maintaining backwards compatibility. The incentives aren't there, of course.
  - int_19h 7y ago
    For starters, let's just have them open, and let the market figure out how to bridge them. With lessons learned from that, maybe we can come up with something working. But even if not, it would already be a drastic improvement on what we have.
stickfigure 7y ago
Are you suggesting that there be an API to access social network information? That is literally what Facebook had, and what people excoriate them over thanks to Cambridge Analytica. The Facebook haters are driving social network data into a silo; how else are you going to "keep control of your data"? You can have privacy (or at least the illusion of privacy), or you can have access. You cannot have both.
- croon 7y ago
  Specifically here you're right, but the hypothetical that came to my mind when reading GP was in similarity with email. I want to reach my friend Pete through "media". But I don't really care about his ad-relevant personality matrix, I just want the endpoint. The profile metadata is the aspect created and mistreated by FB, and abused by CA. I suppose scraping the proposed hypothetical API would be akin to getting a large list of valid emails, but it's not as useful for targetted agitprop.
- tremon 7y ago
  This sounds to me like a backwards argument. The Cambridge Analytica scandal revolved around unsanctioned access to data. I don't think the premise of having an API was the problem, it was the lack of transparency and control offered to Facebook's users.
  - nindalf 7y ago
    Does your data about your date of birth belong to you or to both you and your friends? Ostensibly, it's very personal information, hence only to you. Right now you can set the visibility of your birthday on facebook so you control exactly who sees it. If you set it to private, no one can see it. But supposing you set it to "Friends", would you be ok with your friends downloading this data and keeping a copy for themselves? They'd do that because they'd think it's "their" data, which should remain accessible even if they left Facebook. I can see arguments both ways. Some folks would be ok with it (they're your friends) and others wouldn't (you can't change the privacy setting on data that's already been downloaded). Similarly with friends list. A person's list of friends is probably "their" data, even if it has your name on it. Would you be ok with them downloading this information? The trade-off between control of some users and the privacy of other users is a complex issue. Let's not pretend there are simple answers to this.
thebigspacefuck 7y ago
On Facebook's "Download your information", it says "Download a copy of your information to keep, or to transfer to another service". Is there another service to transfer to? Maybe something using ActivityPub like Mastodon? I can't find one. There are third party apps that allow you to post to Facebook and check your Facebook status. Couldn't that other service post to Facebook and Mastodon on your behalf and read your friends profiles? I can't think of a reason it isn't technically possible for something like that to be created, but I haven't seen it created yet.
georgeecollins 7y ago
I think the problem in general is that near monopoly services are "roach motels" for data. That makes it impossible for a competitor to come along and use the data you put into a service or platform. I am not talking about all data, I am saying the data that users actively entered into a service: pictures, videos, contact information, relationship status. Make a law that said if I upload data to your service, you have to have an API of a open format where I can download all of it again, and I can give permission to someone to download it in a practical format. IMO that would do a lot to reduce the monopoly power of social networks and platforms like Youtube, and be fundamentally fair.
apecat 7y ago
Moxie Marlinspike, of Open Whisper Systems, had some pretty pessimistic things to say about how stagnant federated protocols become, and why they avoided that approach with Signal. https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ End result: Signal is a real, usable tool, the recommendation of which is fully actionable security and privacy advice you can share with anyone who is capable of using WhatsApp. Here's some HN discussion on the post, and a piece with counter arguments. The latter, I feel, misses the entire point of how urgent the need for usable privacy and security tools is. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668912 https://gultsch.de/objection.html https://gultsch.de/objection.html
- nbadg 7y ago
  There are definitely some good arguments on either side of the federation discussion, though I personally tend to lean more towards the Moxie side than the optimistic one. That being said, a big part of me wonders if (assuming you could find lawmakers with enough technical literacy to propose it, which would be a pretty huge ask!) you might be able to get the best of both worlds by requiring sites like facebook to expose an API for programmatic access. That would solve the stangancy problems that Moxie highlights (not to mention sidestepping the need to get everyone to agree on any one protocol), whilst simultaneously forcing a whole lot of things to open up. Alternatively: part of the reason these walled gardens exist is that they control the concept of identity. Not necessarily in the sense of "this is my profile", but more in the sense of authentication and authorization. If you moved that somewhere else -- say, in the browser -- it would make it much easier to build systems that are interoperable.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  The problem with that approach is that while did result in fast delivery of a good product for the 12 people using signal, it’s not going to grow. The problem with all newer systems is that they are identity based, which doesn’t scale down to all of the device/station use cases that phones exist for.
  - greenspleen 7y ago

return1 7y ago

> What we really need is for social networks to interoperate the way email from different providers does. And then things will get way, way worse than facebook, because nobody is there to censor anyone, and then the nytimes will be asking to censor the entire internet because reasons. No, please. Let people stick to facebook where they can be herded appropriately.

dominotw 7y ago

sounds like terrible govt interference. Why would they give away their most valuable asset for free.

Jommi 7y ago
Because it creates an unfair advantage? If switching costs are high it enables monopolistic power just because of high amount of users, and not because of quality of the platform.

cjslep 7y ago

Nit: Mastodon isn't a protocol. ActivityPub[0] is the protocol. [0] https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/

michaelbrooks 7y ago
To add to this, anyone can turn their website into a social network using ActivityPub. For example, if you have a WordPress blog/site then you can use this plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/. This then allows profiles from other networks such as Mastodon to follow, read and comment on your posts or statuses.
kermitismyhero 7y ago
I've always found it disturbing how Gargron rarely makes any attempt to disabuse people of the incorrect notion that Mastodon was the start of, and the canonical example of, open and federated social networks. If anyone deserves that sort of credit, it would arguably be Evan Prodromou and the original identica a decade ago. Though I could wrong, and unaware of anyone prior to him working on this sort of federated and open twitter clone.

SamuelAdams 7y ago

Another example: what if cell phone carriers only let you talk / text with people on the same carrier network? Suddenly everyone would need to buy T-Mobile, or Verizon, or Sprint, just to talk to one another. Or carry 4 different sim cards, similar to having multiple accounts. Sounds terrible? Good. That's what Facebook is doing now.

thebigspacefuck 7y ago
Facebook lets you share posts from Twitter and Instagram, not sure about what else
- greedo 7y ago
  Umm, Facebook owns Instagram.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  When you share a post on Twitter or Instagram, you're creating a Facebook share--this isn't an example of an open protocol in any way.
joe_the_user 7y ago
The problem is that social networking protocols would inherently be much more complex than phone protocols (but it could be done). Moreover, some body would have to standardize those protocols as well as discovering some way of preventing spam. My hunch that I know get more spam on my phone number than either my email or my Facebook account because phones still have open points of entry.
- theseatoms 7y ago
  The open protocol could start small and gradually grow over time, maintaining backwards compatibility. The incentives aren't there, of course.
- int_19h 7y ago
  For starters, let's just have them open, and let the market figure out how to bridge them. With lessons learned from that, maybe we can come up with something working. But even if not, it would already be a drastic improvement on what we have.

stickfigure 7y ago

Are you suggesting that there be an API to access social network information? That is literally what Facebook had, and what people excoriate them over thanks to Cambridge Analytica. The Facebook haters are driving social network data into a silo; how else are you going to "keep control of your data"? You can have privacy (or at least the illusion of privacy), or you can have access. You cannot have both.

croon 7y ago
Specifically here you're right, but the hypothetical that came to my mind when reading GP was in similarity with email. I want to reach my friend Pete through "media". But I don't really care about his ad-relevant personality matrix, I just want the endpoint. The profile metadata is the aspect created and mistreated by FB, and abused by CA. I suppose scraping the proposed hypothetical API would be akin to getting a large list of valid emails, but it's not as useful for targetted agitprop.
tremon 7y ago
This sounds to me like a backwards argument. The Cambridge Analytica scandal revolved around unsanctioned access to data. I don't think the premise of having an API was the problem, it was the lack of transparency and control offered to Facebook's users.
- nindalf 7y ago
  Does your data about your date of birth belong to you or to both you and your friends? Ostensibly, it's very personal information, hence only to you. Right now you can set the visibility of your birthday on facebook so you control exactly who sees it. If you set it to private, no one can see it. But supposing you set it to "Friends", would you be ok with your friends downloading this data and keeping a copy for themselves? They'd do that because they'd think it's "their" data, which should remain accessible even if they left Facebook. I can see arguments both ways. Some folks would be ok with it (they're your friends) and others wouldn't (you can't change the privacy setting on data that's already been downloaded). Similarly with friends list. A person's list of friends is probably "their" data, even if it has your name on it. Would you be ok with them downloading this information? The trade-off between control of some users and the privacy of other users is a complex issue. Let's not pretend there are simple answers to this.

thebigspacefuck 7y ago

On Facebook's "Download your information", it says "Download a copy of your information to keep, or to transfer to another service". Is there another service to transfer to? Maybe something using ActivityPub like Mastodon? I can't find one. There are third party apps that allow you to post to Facebook and check your Facebook status. Couldn't that other service post to Facebook and Mastodon on your behalf and read your friends profiles? I can't think of a reason it isn't technically possible for something like that to be created, but I haven't seen it created yet.

georgeecollins 7y ago

I think the problem in general is that near monopoly services are "roach motels" for data. That makes it impossible for a competitor to come along and use the data you put into a service or platform. I am not talking about all data, I am saying the data that users actively entered into a service: pictures, videos, contact information, relationship status. Make a law that said if I upload data to your service, you have to have an API of a open format where I can download all of it again, and I can give permission to someone to download it in a practical format. IMO that would do a lot to reduce the monopoly power of social networks and platforms like Youtube, and be fundamentally fair.

apecat 7y ago

Moxie Marlinspike, of Open Whisper Systems, had some pretty pessimistic things to say about how stagnant federated protocols become, and why they avoided that approach with Signal. https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ End result: Signal is a real, usable tool, the recommendation of which is fully actionable security and privacy advice you can share with anyone who is capable of using WhatsApp. Here's some HN discussion on the post, and a piece with counter arguments. The latter, I feel, misses the entire point of how urgent the need for usable privacy and security tools is. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668912 https://gultsch.de/objection.html https://gultsch.de/objection.html

nbadg 7y ago
There are definitely some good arguments on either side of the federation discussion, though I personally tend to lean more towards the Moxie side than the optimistic one. That being said, a big part of me wonders if (assuming you could find lawmakers with enough technical literacy to propose it, which would be a pretty huge ask!) you might be able to get the best of both worlds by requiring sites like facebook to expose an API for programmatic access. That would solve the stangancy problems that Moxie highlights (not to mention sidestepping the need to get everyone to agree on any one protocol), whilst simultaneously forcing a whole lot of things to open up. Alternatively: part of the reason these walled gardens exist is that they control the concept of identity. Not necessarily in the sense of "this is my profile", but more in the sense of authentication and authorization. If you moved that somewhere else -- say, in the browser -- it would make it much easier to build systems that are interoperable.
Spooky23 7y ago
The problem with that approach is that while did result in fast delivery of a good product for the 12 people using signal, it’s not going to grow. The problem with all newer systems is that they are identity based, which doesn’t scale down to all of the device/station use cases that phones exist for.
- greenspleen 7y ago