26 ms·

A legislative path to an interoperable internet

304 points by wallflower 6y ago

klyrs 6y ago
> If Facebook is to make its encrypted chat services interoperable with third parties, it must reserve the right to aggressively fix bugs and patch vulnerabilities. Sometimes, this will make it difficult for competitors to keep up, but protocol security is not something we can afford to sacrifice. This looks like a barn door, not a loophole. What would stop major players from updating their proprietary protocol on a daily basis? The overhead of staying on top of a dozen big social media sites' protocols would be absurd. I agree with the need for security, and I see that the industry has failed to update email; but I see that more as a consequence of the industry continually trying to "disrupt" email through the creation of walled gardens.
- Lammy 6y ago
  Fun fact: Within Facebook’s task-tracking system there is/was a “wishlist”-priority task with planned details for how to change Messenger’s MQTT protocol to break third-party clients if need be. As far as I know this was never acted upon because Pidgin-like third-party clients never became popular for Messenger MQTT like they were for the old now-deprecated XMPP Messenger gateway.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    Wait, FB Messenger has a semi-standard API now?
    - Lammy 6y ago
      I wouldn't call it that, but this might be usable for you: https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook Or maybe not: https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook/issues/496 https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook/issues/496 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/building-facebook-messenger/10150259350998920 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/building...
    - munfred 6y ago
      No it doesn't, you need to impersonate an user and login with your password in order to relay messages outside of FB messenger. That said, it has been done: https://github.com/tulir/mautrix-facebook https://github.com/tulir/mautrix-facebook
    - oconnor663 6y ago
      No, it used to support XMPP, but that support was eventually removed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266769
      - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
        I knew about that: the talk of MQTT made me think that there was some improvement in the situation.
    - anticensor 6y ago
      It is based on MQTT+extensions.
- chabad360 6y ago
  From what I understood from the content of the bill, it seems that there is a clause that prevents companies from aggressively modifying their API to prevent interoperability.
- ViViDboarder 6y ago
  As I’m reading S4c2c it looks like this would be prohibited. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2658/text#id0aa97dfb408149ec8473e59feaf890c8 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/265...
  - klyrs 6y ago
    That's certainly the intent, but as it's written, (by my lay-reading) it appears that the burden of proof would rest upon a single change, and not a sequence of changes -- any one may be innocuous, but their sum may not be. And where a single actor may not run afoul, I can imagine a conspiracy of big players making changes which collectively burden smaller players. I would greatly prefer a consortium or better, an independent standards body.
    - munfred 6y ago
      Having professional standards bodies for interfaces has actually been proposed - in another bill! S.1084 - DETOUR Act, introduced 2019-04-09. Full text (only 1800 words!): https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1084/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/108... It was written to get rid of dark patterns and deceptive interfaces. The official summary says: "To prohibit the usage of exploitative and deceptive practices by large online operators and to promote consumer welfare in the use of behavioral research by such providers." In my reading, the DETOUR act says that large online operators (defined as services with more than 100M monthly active users anywhere, not just in the US) may not use misleading interfaces or unclear wording to mislead the user. It also says that they can only conduct behavioral experiments (e.g. A/B testing) if they have an independent review board registered with the FTC and have informed consent from the users as well as routine disclosure to the public of experiments being done. Finally it says that online large operators may form professional standards bodies, and that those bodies should develop on a continuing basis guidances and bright line rules for developing their technology products in a way that does not impair user autonomy or induce compulsive behavior in children.
- munfred 6y ago
  As pointed out, in section 4 of S.2658 this is explicitly prohibited: C) PROHIBITED CHANGES TO INTERFACES.—A change to an interoperability interface or terms of use made with the purpose, or substantial effect, of unreasonably denying access or undermining interoperability for competing communications services shall be considered a violation of the duty under subparagraph (A) to facilitate and maintain interoperability based on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms.
  - stickfigure 6y ago
    I'm sure that clause will come in handy after a mind-reading device is invented. The SEC already has a tough time proving "market manipulation".
munfred 6y ago
Here is the full text of the ACCESS Act of 2019 bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2658/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/265... I highly recommend that everyone reads it - it is extremely short, well written, and probably the single most important piece of legislation to HN folks in the past decade. As the bill is right now, it require communications platforms with 100M monthly active users in the US to make their services interoperable with other platforms. The bill presumes that platforms using open protocols already (like email) are fine. Facebook and it’s messenger platform is likely to be the only one meeting the threshold. I'm not American, but if you are and you care, I would suggest you to call your representative and explain why you support (or not) this bill. Remember that as it goes through congress, it can, and most likely will, be heavily edited or gutted to fit the many competing interests whispering in their ears. If you think the bill is good as is, tell them that! Personally, I think the bill is perfect, except for the 100M user threshold to start demand compatibility, which I think should be lowered to 10M.
- camgunz 6y ago
  This bill is pretty smart (agreed about the limit though, I'd even put it at 1M MAU). Could it be we're finally at a point where Congress is listening to competent tech lobbying instead of just megacorp media/tech companies?
  - munfred 6y ago
    I'm every bit as surprised as you. I don't think it's a significant fraction of congress though, I think it's specifically senator Mark Warner. He did work with tech before, and my take is that he knows what he is talking about and was waiting for a good political moment to present such unpalatable proposals (unpalatable to the tech companies, that is). See his Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Warner#Early_life,_education,_and_business_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Warner#Early_life,_educat... Last year he (meaning, most likely his staff under his supervision) put out a "whitepaper" outlining 20 possible proposals to regulate social media and tech companies. Notably, 4 of the things discussed were introduced as bills in one form or another. I posted about them last year, see the discussion and links here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21389809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21389809
chosen1111 6y ago
Including sites like Gab and Bitchute?
- thekaleb 6y ago
  As far as I understand it gab does use open protocols.
root_axis 6y ago
Applying laws based on MAUs doesn't seem like a reasonable approach. MAUs are a self-reported and subjectively defined metric and the MAU threshold is arbitrarily chosen. Technology laws should not be applied based on apparent popularity. I think a better version of this legislation would apply to any corporation that collects PII or collects browser activity outside of 1st party domains, in order to serve ads to users.
- munfred 6y ago
  This has actually also be proposed by Mark Warner in 2018 on a whitepaper titled “Potential Policy Proposals for Regulation of Social Media and Technology Firms”: https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/d/3/d32c2f17-cc76-4e11-8aa9-897eb3c90d16/65A7C5D983F899DAAE5AA21F57BAD944.social-media-regulation-proposals.pdf https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/d/3/d32c2f... It discusses 20 topics for potential legislation, listed below. Look at items 13 and 16 in the whitepaper, they go very much along the lines of what you said. 1) Duty to clearly and conspicuously label bots 2) Duty to determine the origin of posts and/or accounts 3) Duty to identify inauthentic accounts 4) Make platforms liable for state-law torts (defamation, false light, public disclosure of private facts) for failure to take down deep fake or other manipulated audio/video content 5) Public Interest Data Access Bill 6) Require Interagency Task Force for Countering Asymmetric Threats to Democratic Institutions 7)Disclosure Requirements for Online Political Advertisements 8) Public Initiative for Media Literacy 9) Increasing Deterrence Against Foreign Manipulation 10) Information fiduciary 11) Privacy rulemaking authority at FTC 12) Comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation 13) 1st Party Consent for Data Collection 14) Statutory determination that so-called ‘dark patterns’ are unfair and deceptive trade practices 15) Algorithmic auditability/fairness 16) Data Transparency Bill 17) Data Portability Bill 18) Interoperability 19) Opening federal datasets to university researchers and qualified small businesses/startups 20) Essential Facilities Determinations
ThePhysicist 6y ago
Data portability in the GDPR aimed at this (as the article says), but it was far too weak to have any effect and it seems no one cares about really implementing it. The only services that implemented something that resembles data portability are e-mail providers, and there it works mostly because there already is an underyling protocol that is built with federation in mind. We really need more open protocols to make this happen. A doable strategy could be too look at markets with a lot of existing solutions (e.g. chat, task management, note taking, scheduling, document management, file syncing) and force the players to formulate a protocol that everyone adheres to. Since that will take a long time it's probably only doable for the core services, but having something like this e.g. for chat services would be incredibly useful.
cvdub 6y ago
Would this apply to iMessage?
- munfred 6y ago
  As the bill S.2658 text currently stands [0], if iMessage has more than 100M monthly active users, then yes. It is hard to find such statistics on a quick search, but the surest way to make sure it applies to iMessage is to call your representative and tell them the threshold should be lowered from 100M to 10M MAU :) [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2658/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/265...
  - thekaleb 6y ago
    A quick Google search shows that iMessage does have the prerequisite 100 million active users.
    - unilynx 6y ago
      What did you find? I only see a global number, but this proposal requires 100million MUA in the USA With some quick searches, multiplying iPhone's 39% marketshare with 328million Americans gets me to 127million, but that's probably too high - not everyone has a smartphone, and how many users actually use iMessage at least once a month, and not say, WhatsApp exclusively ?
      - sedatk 6y ago
        iMessage exists on iPad and Macbooks too.
        unilynx 6y ago
        I have a hardtime imagining users with a MacBook or iPad but not having an iPhone adding a significant number of iMessage users But the question was if there are a 100 million MAU in the US, let alone how to find that information in a simple google search. I couldn't find any breakout of iMessage users per country
upofadown 6y ago
>...email servers have been slow to adopt even basic, point-to-point encryption with STARTTLS. You need to give more credit than that. STARTTLS adoption is well over 90% now. Yes, it is unathenticated so that it only protects against passive listening, but that is still a huge improvement. Authentication only would apply to the mail servers anyway. Further worthwhile improvement would require authentication of end users. Not sure how you can legislate that in a useful way.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  > STARTTLS adoption is well over 90% now. That makes me wonder if it would be reasonable for a diverse group of email providers (large and small) to announce that they will add a 1 hour delay to emails received from or sent to servers that don't support STARTTLS. Perhaps each year that delay could double, until those non-compliant services became basically unusable. To make this change even less controversial, users could be given the option to whitelist certain email addresses so that exceptional use cases could still be supported.
nobody9999 6y ago
I think this bill is a great idea. it doesn't address all the issues associated with locking users into these sites, and the attendant influence and market power of them, but it's a good start. I just emailed my senators and representative urging them to support this bill. In those emails (the text of which is reproduced below), I address some of the reasons I think it's a good idea and make some suggestions for amendments to it. What additional reasons do you have for supporting (or not) this bill, and what other amendments would you suggest? Text of email to my House/Senate representatives: I strongly urge you to support the ACCESS Act (S.2658 - Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching Act of 2019) introduced by Senator Warner and encourage your colleagues to do so as well. The bill requires that large communications platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide mechanisms for other platforms to interoperate with their platforms. This is important for several reasons: 1. The sheer size of these platforms lock your constituents into them, creating huge barriers to entry for competitors and stifling competition in the Social netwotking market; 2. The ACCESS Act would create a mechanism for other platforms to interoperate with these huge platforms, some of which already exist and others which could provide users not only with superior capabilities, but also with the ability to exert more control over their personal data and information (cf. Diaspora, https://joindiaspora.org https://joindiaspora.org ); 3. These huge platforms have enormous control, not only over the news and information that their users see, but also over the marketplaces created by their sheer size. Requiring them to freely interoperate provides an opportunity to create a true public commons divorced from any particular corporate entity; 4. As we've seen in the recent (and not so recent) past, these platforms exert an enormous amount of influence and have a huge economic impact on us. As such, there have been calls to break up these companies to limit that impact and influence. I posit that creating an environment which will significantly reduce barriers to entry into this space will encourage competition and limit the impact/influence of these corporations, while creat new opportunities, new jobs and a broader set of voices on the Internet. I'd further urge you to introduce amendments to this bill to accomplish the following: 1. Reduce the size of impacted platforms from 100,000,000 users to 100,000. This would allow a rich ecosystem of communication and social networking platforms that can interact and give everyone an opportunity to connect with others in a decentralized, open way. It would also provide strong incentives for entrepreneurship in this space and encourage innovation and competition; 2. In addition to tasking the National Institute for Standards and Technology with creating the protocols and interfaces required to implement this bill, invite the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to participate as well. The IETF (https://ietf.org/about/ https://ietf.org/about/ ) are the people who have, for more than 30 years, been developing, documenting and implementing the technical standards that have made the Internet the economic and cultural dynamo it is today. Please make this a priority, because broad-based, open communication, discussion and the potential for enhanced personal privacy are critical to our democracy and cultural cohesion.
esoterae 6y ago
There's a number of quiet warnings in my head that this is too overbroad. Don't get me wrong, I think something like this should happen 100%. But this seems to cast too wide a net. What about my bank? They have >100M users, and with an app/service portal, they'll be required to be "interoperable". I don't want my bank or my bank info to be interoperable. I also don't want my bank to have an interoperability interface; as an internet plumber, I fully realize the first thing you need to have a blockage is a pipe with something in it. What about content delivery? Will I be able to play music/movies hosted by my subscription provider through a 3rd party? This calls into question some difficult problems around licensing that may be impossible to satisfy via existing, established contracts; don't paint a content provider into a corner of guaranteed noncompliance. Where is the definition of "interoperability"? This will be a field day for an endless bevy of corporate lawyers to say "Oh XYZ isn't a service with users. It's available to users of ABC service, which is fully compliant with the interoperability rules as required by blah blah." I applaud the effort and think this is a priceless next step in helping define where we should go next, but I'm only hearing possibility and daydreams, not concrete implementation.
- munfred 6y ago
  If you look at section 2 of bill S.2658[0], you will see that the bill only applies to "Large Communications Platform Providers". You bank is not that. Spotify and Netflix are not that. The bill doesn't apply to them. And note that the current threshold is 100M monthly active users in the United States*. A third of the population using the communications platform monthly. Relevant passage of section 2: (7) LARGE COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM.—The term “large communications platform” means a product or service provided by a communications provider that— (A) generates income, directly or indirectly, from the collection, processing, sale, or sharing of user data; and (B) has more than 100,000,000 monthly active users in the United States. --- Original bill text: [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2658/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/265...
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    > (A) generates income, directly or indirectly, from the collection, processing, sale, or sharing of user data; and OK, this is substantially better than any other proposal I've seen. It means that any platform that doesn't make money off of user data (e.g. one that makes money in some more ethical way) is exempt.
ilaksh 6y ago
It's nice to see a reminder every once in awhile that some people in government are actually competent. It's strange that it seems like actions on major structural issues are so delayed and rare or ineffectual, but at least some people do make an appropriate effort sometimes. I generally don't donate to anyone but I am going to send the EFF a few dollars in case it helps them promote this bill.
cblconfederate 6y ago
The proposal makes no mention of who owsn the data and what it's worth. Why not instead legislate the ownership of the data by the users? The users should decide whether take their data, exclusively or not, to the platform they like more, or even better, to the platform that pays them more. Posts, friendships, pictures etc , all of this is valuable IP that can be traded with social networks. Let them compete who is going to win more users on a monetary basis. It's time we move on from the model that mercilessly squeezes user's IP for profit while giving back only "free services". The cost of free services has dropped substantially, yet the compensation of users has remained steadily at $0
- munfred 6y ago
  There is actually another bill that aims to legislate over assessing the value of user data: S.1951 - DASHBOARD act, introduced 2019-06-25. Full text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1951/ https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/195... Official summary: To require the Securities and Exchange Commission to promulgate regulations relating to the disclosure of certain commercial data, and for other purposes. It applies to “commercial data operators”, defined as entities offering consumer online services or a data broker with over 100M monthly users in the United States for most months over the last year. It says that they must routinely provide each user with an estimate of how much they think that users data is worth for the operator, and clearly describe the data collected and how it is used, as well as allow users to delete their data. It also says that operators must disclose every quarter to the SEC the “material value” of the user data they hold, contracts they have for collection and use of data, and the value of anything else the SEC determines is necessary. It puts the SEC in charge of figuring out a valuation methodology for the data. It also says the SEC should amend the rules for disclosures from public companies that classify as data operators to include information on how data held by them: how it is protected, liabilities, sources, revenue generated, large contracts or acquisitions of data. For public companies I believe this would significantly change how they must do their accounting, since they must treat data as an asset. It could have significant impacts on their market cap, which could be real (since more information will be available) or just a result of the new reporting rules affecting their listed assets.
crazygringo 6y ago
I think the goals here are laudable, but the cynic in me worries about the details. Data portability is easy to implement (and has been by some companies). But back-end interoperability and delegability are tricky not just because of technical challenges (those can be solved), but mainly because of abuse and spam. If, all of a sudden, any other service can like and comment on Facebook posts without having a Facebook account... I don't see how this doesn't become a spam/abuse-fest overnight. My $0.02 is that there's a much simpler solution hiding in plain sight: just stop giving legal copyright/hacking/ToS protection to sites with third-party-generated content that the site didn't license. In other words, if someone wants to build an app that downloads your Spotify playlist data by impersonating you... or scrape Craigslist listings... or copy Yelp reviews... then nothing is legally in the way. Not copyright, not anti-hacking laws, not ToS. Services are free to rate-limit or ban you if they catch you... but if you can get around that then the information/interaction is yours. This feels like a much more "free market" approach. It doesn't rely on trying to build laws that will be bad compromises and outdated by the time they're passed. Rather it involves undoing existing laws and protections that are producing harm. (To be clear, copyright still applies to things that are paid for or licensed -- movies, songs, articles, etc.)
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Banning people using an API doesn't sound very free market The ideas of "Free market" evolved before EULA type bullshit did, I don't think original creators of the idea would approve of them.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    To the contrary -- the "free" in "free market" refers to freedom. So if a service wants to ban a user, then that's pretty much the definition of a free market. Similarly, a user is free to try to get around the ban by using a different IP address, etc. Both sides here would be free to do what they want without the law taking sides. But at a technical level, because anti-scraping measures aren't that hard to defeat, it means that users and competitors will be the primary beneficiaries here.
megous 6y ago
Delegability: Yes, please. :) I like writing a small apps that scrape some service's data to my local DB and then use the data locally (being able to combine them in my own ways). Imagine a postgresql database where bunch of these scraping interfaces load data into per-service schemas, and you can then join/union across schemas, integrating data from several different online services in creative ways. Too bad this bill is targeted at huge services only. Though those are mostly the ones that try to obfuscate and hinder access to data. I can already use up one hand counting the webistes that just deleted all user contributed content or disappeared for other reasons where if I didn't do this, the content would be lost completely to me. Or services (like online banking) that just offer 2-3 year history, and you need to pay to access older data. Just allow users to write their own clients.
offtop5 6y ago
>Now imagine that a user on one platform can interact with any of the other platforms through a single interface. I love the spirit here, but I think everyone here is aware that outside of mainstream networks like Twitter you have other networks which are just full of rampant hate speech. If you tell Facebook they have to support allowing hateful users to contact their own, Facebook no longer has any ability to moderate anything. I would love social media which wasn't controlled by a single Mega company, but I'm just not sure how this could exist. I have heard of projects, say a local group of college students set up zoom socializing, which does provide a much needed alternative. But I just don't think this can scale, once you have no obligation to the group to be a decent human being, it becomes extremely easy to be nasty and mean. I'm lucky enough to be a part of one zoom ( for now, I met the owner in real life) community. He has to personally let everyone else in to the room, and he's already had to ban a few people for over the top racism. Before you know it everyone is meaner on social media than they'd ever be in the real world . It's at the point where I don't want to feel my mind with that, therefore I just don't partake. If this ever was something Facebook had to do, within hours you'd be flooded with bots dming you nonsense. As is Facebook has major issues with Spam and abuse, what's the stop someone from creating a service which just sends bots in to hurl racist insults
- grishka 6y ago
  Federated social media works around this just fine. Any server can ban any other server breaking its rules. Yes, a federated system will inevitably be abused by malicious actors because of its inherent openness. But if it's closed the way it is now, then it is abused by the company that owns each platform. If I had to choose, I'd absolutely pick spam over ads, tracking, and dark patterns. Spam is at least easier to deal with and universally hated by everyone while most people don't even realize they're being tracked at all times.
  - offtop5 6y ago
    You can also just not use social media. No one forces you to use Facebook. I respect the right of Facebook to not want to be over ran with hate speech. It's a nominal task to spin up a fresh server everytime you get banned. The only effective way to stop said spam would be for FB to have a limited white list of vetted partners. So your back where you started .
jaggirs 6y ago
This is good and all, but there is a much simpler solution to this problem and others: Progressive taxation of companies I know this sounds outrageous, but hear me out. What if monopolies split themselves? Wouldn't that be great? Does the same company really have to make the phone and the charger? No, but there are 2 reasons apple does: 1. Collaboration between the phone department and the charger department is slightly easier. 2. They can abuse their monopoly on iphone chargers to force you to pay more for them. Apple makes about 30 billion on iphones per quarter. Assuming all iphones were $600 (which they arent) and everyone uses 2 chargers per iphone (because the first one broke) priced at $20, apple would be making $2 billion from chargers. Say, if they didn't abuse their monopoly position for chargers they would make only $1.8 billion from them. This is $2.0 billion - $1.8 billion = $0.2 billion less revenue. Now if you just tax apple progressively such that taxes for 32 billion in revenue are more than $0.2 billion higher than paying taxes for 30 billion in revenue, apple will split into iphoneapple and chargerapple by themselves! Now in practice you might not want to tax revenue but for example the value of the company or something else. Also you don't want the 'split' companies to still behave like they are one company, this means that you want the split-off company to have different shareholders from the main company, because otherwise they would just behave in mutual interest. More in line with the topic, netflix might decide to split into a 'movie suggestions algorithm' service and a 'movie streaming' company. Google would split into a gazillions of different companies. But some interoperable internet legislature might be a little more realistic :)
- lucian1900 6y ago
  And with that 0.2 billion Apple (along with several others) will make sure no such law is passed. If a law like you propose was possible, then it would already be possible to split the monopolies. Neither can happen until workers are actually in control of the state, as opposed to the current dictatorship of monopolists.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  If we think the advantages of monopoly power are undesirable, we should tax them. Don't fine them for abusing monopoly power; it's an asset, tax them just for having it. Same thing that Sanders said about the banks - tax them for simply being large, and they'll break themselves up. edit: If walled gardens had to pay taxes on their moats, they'd stop digging them.
0xquad 6y ago
I generally support the EFF and think netizens need far more protections than they have, and those need to come through legislation. But I don't get why this mandated interoperability is a good idea. Mandating data portability is one thing, but having the government decide that a company must provide an api seems absurd to me (so far: it's a new idea to me). In the meantime, dear EFF: - Why hasn't the EFF created boilerplate privacy agreement clauses that companies could adopt to prove their ubiquitously claimed "utmost concern for user privacy"? - Why isn't there a vision of how companies could maintain the provenance under which each datum has been acquired (and therefore when they can/can't be shared/sold/etc.)? - What meaning does any privacy agreement have (no matter how consumer friendly) if it can be changed at any time? - Why do NO companies promise to protect user data in the event of an acquisition (in fact they promise the opposite). These seem like action items right down EFF's lane and I keep waiting year after year for the basics to be covered. I criticize as a friend (and small donor).
- treis 6y ago
  > generally support the EFF and think netizens need far more protections than they have, and those need to come through legislation. But I don't get why this mandated interoperability is a good idea. It does look like a solution in search of a problem to me. Plenty of social networks have grown up while Facebook existed. Off the top of my head Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Viber, Tiktok, Yikyak, LinkedIn. It's not clear what the practical impact of forced interoperability means. It (probably) upends the current revenue model. Who is going to maintain the back end API when the revenue is captured by the front end?
  - JetSpiegel 6y ago
    Why do we need 10 "different" apps to send messages between people? Can you imagine needing a different email client to communicate between Gmail and Outlook users?
Animats 6y ago
Data portability, yes. No big argument there. Back-end interoperability, yes. No more locking out TweetDeck, and common applications for all message transports. In particular, back-end interoperability needs to be mandatory for Internet of Things stuff. The lifespan of a cloud service is short, maybe 5 years. That's a big problem for house components. Delegability needs thought. There's bots. There's Snooping as a Service. Technically, back-end interoperabilty implies the ability to delegate. It's more of a contractual issue. Can a service forbid it? Intermediaries and aggregators have their own headaches.
- Reelin 6y ago
  > back-end interoperability needs to be mandatory for Internet of Things stuff More than that, IoT network communications need to be snoopable by the end user if desired. There's a real threat of devices sending back data you don't want them to and even working together to exfiltrate data from a device that's otherwise blocked from the internet. (There was a startup in the greater Seattle area working on such exfiltration capabilities at one point, euphemistically referred to as "routing at the edge". Frustratingly I can't seem to track them down right now.)
deleted 6y ago
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gfodor 6y ago
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me once Democrats realize that they are literally trying to legally require Facebook rebuild the API that resulted in the Cambridge Analytica scandal they have railed against for years this bill will get dropped for dumb political reasons. Opening up these services like this seems to be one of several prerequisites to preventing great harms, but doing so would be in conflict with a number of expedient political issues the parties have dug in on around platform censorship, data privacy, etc.
- polyomino 6y ago
  Nonsense bills like this are what will keep social media giants honest. The market won't on its own because the network effects are (largely) insurmountable. However, Facebook has to regain the goodwill of the public and fast, or they'll be legislated out of existence through bills like these.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    in case I wasn't clear, I would be thrilled if this bill passed. my point was that short-sighted political tribalism has led politicians to back themselves into corners now that will prevent it, unless the press and public are just too stupid to recognize the contradictions before it does pass.
jFriedensreich 6y ago
I have been wishing for a regulation like this for years. This would be one of the biggest game changers ever, but it is hard to imagine how realistic such a scenario would be because technology moves so fast and facebook fucks up even the apis they are willing to provide all the time. But we need to try at least to tear down the walled gardens and digital despotism of google facebook and apple.
intended 6y ago
> In addition, ad-driven platforms often curate information in ways that benefit advertisers, not users. The ways Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube present content are designed to maximize engagement and drive up quarterly earnings. Can someone describe a model for these services that doesn’t depend on advertising?
stevenalowe 6y ago
Open standards and voluntary cooperation proliferate because they work; legislation does not.

304 points by wallflower 6y ago

> If Facebook is to make its encrypted chat services interoperable with third parties, it must reserve the right to aggressively fix bugs and patch vulnerabilities. Sometimes, this will make it difficult for competitors to keep up, but protocol security is not something we can afford to sacrifice. This looks like a barn door, not a loophole. What would stop major players from updating their proprietary protocol on a daily basis? The overhead of staying on top of a dozen big social media sites' protocols would be absurd. I agree with the need for security, and I see that the industry has failed to update email; but I see that more as a consequence of the industry continually trying to "disrupt" email through the creation of walled gardens.

Lammy 6y ago
Fun fact: Within Facebook’s task-tracking system there is/was a “wishlist”-priority task with planned details for how to change Messenger’s MQTT protocol to break third-party clients if need be. As far as I know this was never acted upon because Pidgin-like third-party clients never became popular for Messenger MQTT like they were for the old now-deprecated XMPP Messenger gateway.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  Wait, FB Messenger has a semi-standard API now?
  - Lammy 6y ago
    I wouldn't call it that, but this might be usable for you: https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook Or maybe not: https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook/issues/496 https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook/issues/496 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/building-facebook-messenger/10150259350998920 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/building...
  - munfred 6y ago
    No it doesn't, you need to impersonate an user and login with your password in order to relay messages outside of FB messenger. That said, it has been done: https://github.com/tulir/mautrix-facebook https://github.com/tulir/mautrix-facebook
  - oconnor663 6y ago
    No, it used to support XMPP, but that support was eventually removed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266769
    - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
      I knew about that: the talk of MQTT made me think that there was some improvement in the situation.
  - anticensor 6y ago
    It is based on MQTT+extensions.
chabad360 6y ago
From what I understood from the content of the bill, it seems that there is a clause that prevents companies from aggressively modifying their API to prevent interoperability.
ViViDboarder 6y ago
As I’m reading S4c2c it looks like this would be prohibited. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2658/text#id0aa97dfb408149ec8473e59feaf890c8 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/265...
- klyrs 6y ago
  That's certainly the intent, but as it's written, (by my lay-reading) it appears that the burden of proof would rest upon a single change, and not a sequence of changes -- any one may be innocuous, but their sum may not be. And where a single actor may not run afoul, I can imagine a conspiracy of big players making changes which collectively burden smaller players. I would greatly prefer a consortium or better, an independent standards body.
  - munfred 6y ago
    Having professional standards bodies for interfaces has actually been proposed - in another bill! S.1084 - DETOUR Act, introduced 2019-04-09. Full text (only 1800 words!): https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1084/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/108... It was written to get rid of dark patterns and deceptive interfaces. The official summary says: "To prohibit the usage of exploitative and deceptive practices by large online operators and to promote consumer welfare in the use of behavioral research by such providers." In my reading, the DETOUR act says that large online operators (defined as services with more than 100M monthly active users anywhere, not just in the US) may not use misleading interfaces or unclear wording to mislead the user. It also says that they can only conduct behavioral experiments (e.g. A/B testing) if they have an independent review board registered with the FTC and have informed consent from the users as well as routine disclosure to the public of experiments being done. Finally it says that online large operators may form professional standards bodies, and that those bodies should develop on a continuing basis guidances and bright line rules for developing their technology products in a way that does not impair user autonomy or induce compulsive behavior in children.
munfred 6y ago
As pointed out, in section 4 of S.2658 this is explicitly prohibited: C) PROHIBITED CHANGES TO INTERFACES.—A change to an interoperability interface or terms of use made with the purpose, or substantial effect, of unreasonably denying access or undermining interoperability for competing communications services shall be considered a violation of the duty under subparagraph (A) to facilitate and maintain interoperability based on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms.
- stickfigure 6y ago
  I'm sure that clause will come in handy after a mind-reading device is invented. The SEC already has a tough time proving "market manipulation".

munfred 6y ago

Here is the full text of the ACCESS Act of 2019 bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2658/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/265... I highly recommend that everyone reads it - it is extremely short, well written, and probably the single most important piece of legislation to HN folks in the past decade. As the bill is right now, it require communications platforms with 100M monthly active users in the US to make their services interoperable with other platforms. The bill presumes that platforms using open protocols already (like email) are fine. Facebook and it’s messenger platform is likely to be the only one meeting the threshold. I'm not American, but if you are and you care, I would suggest you to call your representative and explain why you support (or not) this bill. Remember that as it goes through congress, it can, and most likely will, be heavily edited or gutted to fit the many competing interests whispering in their ears. If you think the bill is good as is, tell them that! Personally, I think the bill is perfect, except for the 100M user threshold to start demand compatibility, which I think should be lowered to 10M.

camgunz 6y ago
This bill is pretty smart (agreed about the limit though, I'd even put it at 1M MAU). Could it be we're finally at a point where Congress is listening to competent tech lobbying instead of just megacorp media/tech companies?
- munfred 6y ago
  I'm every bit as surprised as you. I don't think it's a significant fraction of congress though, I think it's specifically senator Mark Warner. He did work with tech before, and my take is that he knows what he is talking about and was waiting for a good political moment to present such unpalatable proposals (unpalatable to the tech companies, that is). See his Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Warner#Early_life,_education,_and_business_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Warner#Early_life,_educat... Last year he (meaning, most likely his staff under his supervision) put out a "whitepaper" outlining 20 possible proposals to regulate social media and tech companies. Notably, 4 of the things discussed were introduced as bills in one form or another. I posted about them last year, see the discussion and links here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21389809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21389809

chosen1111 6y ago

Including sites like Gab and Bitchute?

thekaleb 6y ago
As far as I understand it gab does use open protocols.

root_axis 6y ago

Applying laws based on MAUs doesn't seem like a reasonable approach. MAUs are a self-reported and subjectively defined metric and the MAU threshold is arbitrarily chosen. Technology laws should not be applied based on apparent popularity. I think a better version of this legislation would apply to any corporation that collects PII or collects browser activity outside of 1st party domains, in order to serve ads to users.

munfred 6y ago
This has actually also be proposed by Mark Warner in 2018 on a whitepaper titled “Potential Policy Proposals for Regulation of Social Media and Technology Firms”: https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/d/3/d32c2f17-cc76-4e11-8aa9-897eb3c90d16/65A7C5D983F899DAAE5AA21F57BAD944.social-media-regulation-proposals.pdf https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/d/3/d32c2f... It discusses 20 topics for potential legislation, listed below. Look at items 13 and 16 in the whitepaper, they go very much along the lines of what you said. 1) Duty to clearly and conspicuously label bots 2) Duty to determine the origin of posts and/or accounts 3) Duty to identify inauthentic accounts 4) Make platforms liable for state-law torts (defamation, false light, public disclosure of private facts) for failure to take down deep fake or other manipulated audio/video content 5) Public Interest Data Access Bill 6) Require Interagency Task Force for Countering Asymmetric Threats to Democratic Institutions 7)Disclosure Requirements for Online Political Advertisements 8) Public Initiative for Media Literacy 9) Increasing Deterrence Against Foreign Manipulation 10) Information fiduciary 11) Privacy rulemaking authority at FTC 12) Comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation 13) 1st Party Consent for Data Collection 14) Statutory determination that so-called ‘dark patterns’ are unfair and deceptive trade practices 15) Algorithmic auditability/fairness 16) Data Transparency Bill 17) Data Portability Bill 18) Interoperability 19) Opening federal datasets to university researchers and qualified small businesses/startups 20) Essential Facilities Determinations

ThePhysicist 6y ago

Data portability in the GDPR aimed at this (as the article says), but it was far too weak to have any effect and it seems no one cares about really implementing it. The only services that implemented something that resembles data portability are e-mail providers, and there it works mostly because there already is an underyling protocol that is built with federation in mind. We really need more open protocols to make this happen. A doable strategy could be too look at markets with a lot of existing solutions (e.g. chat, task management, note taking, scheduling, document management, file syncing) and force the players to formulate a protocol that everyone adheres to. Since that will take a long time it's probably only doable for the core services, but having something like this e.g. for chat services would be incredibly useful.

cvdub 6y ago

Would this apply to iMessage?

munfred 6y ago
As the bill S.2658 text currently stands [0], if iMessage has more than 100M monthly active users, then yes. It is hard to find such statistics on a quick search, but the surest way to make sure it applies to iMessage is to call your representative and tell them the threshold should be lowered from 100M to 10M MAU :) [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2658/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/265...
- thekaleb 6y ago
  A quick Google search shows that iMessage does have the prerequisite 100 million active users.
  - unilynx 6y ago
    What did you find? I only see a global number, but this proposal requires 100million MUA in the USA With some quick searches, multiplying iPhone's 39% marketshare with 328million Americans gets me to 127million, but that's probably too high - not everyone has a smartphone, and how many users actually use iMessage at least once a month, and not say, WhatsApp exclusively ?
    - sedatk 6y ago
      iMessage exists on iPad and Macbooks too.
      - unilynx 6y ago
        I have a hardtime imagining users with a MacBook or iPad but not having an iPhone adding a significant number of iMessage users But the question was if there are a 100 million MAU in the US, let alone how to find that information in a simple google search. I couldn't find any breakout of iMessage users per country

upofadown 6y ago

>...email servers have been slow to adopt even basic, point-to-point encryption with STARTTLS. You need to give more credit than that. STARTTLS adoption is well over 90% now. Yes, it is unathenticated so that it only protects against passive listening, but that is still a huge improvement. Authentication only would apply to the mail servers anyway. Further worthwhile improvement would require authentication of end users. Not sure how you can legislate that in a useful way.

dane-pgp 6y ago
> STARTTLS adoption is well over 90% now. That makes me wonder if it would be reasonable for a diverse group of email providers (large and small) to announce that they will add a 1 hour delay to emails received from or sent to servers that don't support STARTTLS. Perhaps each year that delay could double, until those non-compliant services became basically unusable. To make this change even less controversial, users could be given the option to whitelist certain email addresses so that exceptional use cases could still be supported.

nobody9999 6y ago

I think this bill is a great idea. it doesn't address all the issues associated with locking users into these sites, and the attendant influence and market power of them, but it's a good start. I just emailed my senators and representative urging them to support this bill. In those emails (the text of which is reproduced below), I address some of the reasons I think it's a good idea and make some suggestions for amendments to it. What additional reasons do you have for supporting (or not) this bill, and what other amendments would you suggest? Text of email to my House/Senate representatives: I strongly urge you to support the ACCESS Act (S.2658 - Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching Act of 2019) introduced by Senator Warner and encourage your colleagues to do so as well. The bill requires that large communications platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide mechanisms for other platforms to interoperate with their platforms. This is important for several reasons: 1. The sheer size of these platforms lock your constituents into them, creating huge barriers to entry for competitors and stifling competition in the Social netwotking market; 2. The ACCESS Act would create a mechanism for other platforms to interoperate with these huge platforms, some of which already exist and others which could provide users not only with superior capabilities, but also with the ability to exert more control over their personal data and information (cf. Diaspora, https://joindiaspora.org https://joindiaspora.org ); 3. These huge platforms have enormous control, not only over the news and information that their users see, but also over the marketplaces created by their sheer size. Requiring them to freely interoperate provides an opportunity to create a true public commons divorced from any particular corporate entity; 4. As we've seen in the recent (and not so recent) past, these platforms exert an enormous amount of influence and have a huge economic impact on us. As such, there have been calls to break up these companies to limit that impact and influence. I posit that creating an environment which will significantly reduce barriers to entry into this space will encourage competition and limit the impact/influence of these corporations, while creat new opportunities, new jobs and a broader set of voices on the Internet. I'd further urge you to introduce amendments to this bill to accomplish the following: 1. Reduce the size of impacted platforms from 100,000,000 users to 100,000. This would allow a rich ecosystem of communication and social networking platforms that can interact and give everyone an opportunity to connect with others in a decentralized, open way. It would also provide strong incentives for entrepreneurship in this space and encourage innovation and competition; 2. In addition to tasking the National Institute for Standards and Technology with creating the protocols and interfaces required to implement this bill, invite the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to participate as well. The IETF (https://ietf.org/about/ https://ietf.org/about/ ) are the people who have, for more than 30 years, been developing, documenting and implementing the technical standards that have made the Internet the economic and cultural dynamo it is today. Please make this a priority, because broad-based, open communication, discussion and the potential for enhanced personal privacy are critical to our democracy and cultural cohesion.

esoterae 6y ago

There's a number of quiet warnings in my head that this is too overbroad. Don't get me wrong, I think something like this should happen 100%. But this seems to cast too wide a net. What about my bank? They have >100M users, and with an app/service portal, they'll be required to be "interoperable". I don't want my bank or my bank info to be interoperable. I also don't want my bank to have an interoperability interface; as an internet plumber, I fully realize the first thing you need to have a blockage is a pipe with something in it. What about content delivery? Will I be able to play music/movies hosted by my subscription provider through a 3rd party? This calls into question some difficult problems around licensing that may be impossible to satisfy via existing, established contracts; don't paint a content provider into a corner of guaranteed noncompliance. Where is the definition of "interoperability"? This will be a field day for an endless bevy of corporate lawyers to say "Oh XYZ isn't a service with users. It's available to users of ABC service, which is fully compliant with the interoperability rules as required by blah blah." I applaud the effort and think this is a priceless next step in helping define where we should go next, but I'm only hearing possibility and daydreams, not concrete implementation.

munfred 6y ago
If you look at section 2 of bill S.2658[0], you will see that the bill only applies to "Large Communications Platform Providers". You bank is not that. Spotify and Netflix are not that. The bill doesn't apply to them. And note that the current threshold is 100M monthly active users in the United States*. A third of the population using the communications platform monthly. Relevant passage of section 2: (7) LARGE COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM.—The term “large communications platform” means a product or service provided by a communications provider that— (A) generates income, directly or indirectly, from the collection, processing, sale, or sharing of user data; and (B) has more than 100,000,000 monthly active users in the United States. --- Original bill text: [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2658/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/265...
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > (A) generates income, directly or indirectly, from the collection, processing, sale, or sharing of user data; and OK, this is substantially better than any other proposal I've seen. It means that any platform that doesn't make money off of user data (e.g. one that makes money in some more ethical way) is exempt.

ilaksh 6y ago

It's nice to see a reminder every once in awhile that some people in government are actually competent. It's strange that it seems like actions on major structural issues are so delayed and rare or ineffectual, but at least some people do make an appropriate effort sometimes. I generally don't donate to anyone but I am going to send the EFF a few dollars in case it helps them promote this bill.

cblconfederate 6y ago

The proposal makes no mention of who owsn the data and what it's worth. Why not instead legislate the ownership of the data by the users? The users should decide whether take their data, exclusively or not, to the platform they like more, or even better, to the platform that pays them more. Posts, friendships, pictures etc , all of this is valuable IP that can be traded with social networks. Let them compete who is going to win more users on a monetary basis. It's time we move on from the model that mercilessly squeezes user's IP for profit while giving back only "free services". The cost of free services has dropped substantially, yet the compensation of users has remained steadily at $0

munfred 6y ago
There is actually another bill that aims to legislate over assessing the value of user data: S.1951 - DASHBOARD act, introduced 2019-06-25. Full text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1951/ https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/195... Official summary: To require the Securities and Exchange Commission to promulgate regulations relating to the disclosure of certain commercial data, and for other purposes. It applies to “commercial data operators”, defined as entities offering consumer online services or a data broker with over 100M monthly users in the United States for most months over the last year. It says that they must routinely provide each user with an estimate of how much they think that users data is worth for the operator, and clearly describe the data collected and how it is used, as well as allow users to delete their data. It also says that operators must disclose every quarter to the SEC the “material value” of the user data they hold, contracts they have for collection and use of data, and the value of anything else the SEC determines is necessary. It puts the SEC in charge of figuring out a valuation methodology for the data. It also says the SEC should amend the rules for disclosures from public companies that classify as data operators to include information on how data held by them: how it is protected, liabilities, sources, revenue generated, large contracts or acquisitions of data. For public companies I believe this would significantly change how they must do their accounting, since they must treat data as an asset. It could have significant impacts on their market cap, which could be real (since more information will be available) or just a result of the new reporting rules affecting their listed assets.

crazygringo 6y ago

I think the goals here are laudable, but the cynic in me worries about the details. Data portability is easy to implement (and has been by some companies). But back-end interoperability and delegability are tricky not just because of technical challenges (those can be solved), but mainly because of abuse and spam. If, all of a sudden, any other service can like and comment on Facebook posts without having a Facebook account... I don't see how this doesn't become a spam/abuse-fest overnight. My $0.02 is that there's a much simpler solution hiding in plain sight: just stop giving legal copyright/hacking/ToS protection to sites with third-party-generated content that the site didn't license. In other words, if someone wants to build an app that downloads your Spotify playlist data by impersonating you... or scrape Craigslist listings... or copy Yelp reviews... then nothing is legally in the way. Not copyright, not anti-hacking laws, not ToS. Services are free to rate-limit or ban you if they catch you... but if you can get around that then the information/interaction is yours. This feels like a much more "free market" approach. It doesn't rely on trying to build laws that will be bad compromises and outdated by the time they're passed. Rather it involves undoing existing laws and protections that are producing harm. (To be clear, copyright still applies to things that are paid for or licensed -- movies, songs, articles, etc.)

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Banning people using an API doesn't sound very free market The ideas of "Free market" evolved before EULA type bullshit did, I don't think original creators of the idea would approve of them.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- crazygringo 6y ago
  To the contrary -- the "free" in "free market" refers to freedom. So if a service wants to ban a user, then that's pretty much the definition of a free market. Similarly, a user is free to try to get around the ban by using a different IP address, etc. Both sides here would be free to do what they want without the law taking sides. But at a technical level, because anti-scraping measures aren't that hard to defeat, it means that users and competitors will be the primary beneficiaries here.

megous 6y ago

Delegability: Yes, please. :) I like writing a small apps that scrape some service's data to my local DB and then use the data locally (being able to combine them in my own ways). Imagine a postgresql database where bunch of these scraping interfaces load data into per-service schemas, and you can then join/union across schemas, integrating data from several different online services in creative ways. Too bad this bill is targeted at huge services only. Though those are mostly the ones that try to obfuscate and hinder access to data. I can already use up one hand counting the webistes that just deleted all user contributed content or disappeared for other reasons where if I didn't do this, the content would be lost completely to me. Or services (like online banking) that just offer 2-3 year history, and you need to pay to access older data. Just allow users to write their own clients.

offtop5 6y ago

>Now imagine that a user on one platform can interact with any of the other platforms through a single interface. I love the spirit here, but I think everyone here is aware that outside of mainstream networks like Twitter you have other networks which are just full of rampant hate speech. If you tell Facebook they have to support allowing hateful users to contact their own, Facebook no longer has any ability to moderate anything. I would love social media which wasn't controlled by a single Mega company, but I'm just not sure how this could exist. I have heard of projects, say a local group of college students set up zoom socializing, which does provide a much needed alternative. But I just don't think this can scale, once you have no obligation to the group to be a decent human being, it becomes extremely easy to be nasty and mean. I'm lucky enough to be a part of one zoom ( for now, I met the owner in real life) community. He has to personally let everyone else in to the room, and he's already had to ban a few people for over the top racism. Before you know it everyone is meaner on social media than they'd ever be in the real world . It's at the point where I don't want to feel my mind with that, therefore I just don't partake. If this ever was something Facebook had to do, within hours you'd be flooded with bots dming you nonsense. As is Facebook has major issues with Spam and abuse, what's the stop someone from creating a service which just sends bots in to hurl racist insults

grishka 6y ago
Federated social media works around this just fine. Any server can ban any other server breaking its rules. Yes, a federated system will inevitably be abused by malicious actors because of its inherent openness. But if it's closed the way it is now, then it is abused by the company that owns each platform. If I had to choose, I'd absolutely pick spam over ads, tracking, and dark patterns. Spam is at least easier to deal with and universally hated by everyone while most people don't even realize they're being tracked at all times.
- offtop5 6y ago
  You can also just not use social media. No one forces you to use Facebook. I respect the right of Facebook to not want to be over ran with hate speech. It's a nominal task to spin up a fresh server everytime you get banned. The only effective way to stop said spam would be for FB to have a limited white list of vetted partners. So your back where you started .

jaggirs 6y ago

This is good and all, but there is a much simpler solution to this problem and others: Progressive taxation of companies I know this sounds outrageous, but hear me out. What if monopolies split themselves? Wouldn't that be great? Does the same company really have to make the phone and the charger? No, but there are 2 reasons apple does: 1. Collaboration between the phone department and the charger department is slightly easier. 2. They can abuse their monopoly on iphone chargers to force you to pay more for them. Apple makes about 30 billion on iphones per quarter. Assuming all iphones were $600 (which they arent) and everyone uses 2 chargers per iphone (because the first one broke) priced at $20, apple would be making $2 billion from chargers. Say, if they didn't abuse their monopoly position for chargers they would make only $1.8 billion from them. This is $2.0 billion - $1.8 billion = $0.2 billion less revenue. Now if you just tax apple progressively such that taxes for 32 billion in revenue are more than $0.2 billion higher than paying taxes for 30 billion in revenue, apple will split into iphoneapple and chargerapple by themselves! Now in practice you might not want to tax revenue but for example the value of the company or something else. Also you don't want the 'split' companies to still behave like they are one company, this means that you want the split-off company to have different shareholders from the main company, because otherwise they would just behave in mutual interest. More in line with the topic, netflix might decide to split into a 'movie suggestions algorithm' service and a 'movie streaming' company. Google would split into a gazillions of different companies. But some interoperable internet legislature might be a little more realistic :)

lucian1900 6y ago
And with that 0.2 billion Apple (along with several others) will make sure no such law is passed. If a law like you propose was possible, then it would already be possible to split the monopolies. Neither can happen until workers are actually in control of the state, as opposed to the current dictatorship of monopolists.
pessimizer 6y ago
If we think the advantages of monopoly power are undesirable, we should tax them. Don't fine them for abusing monopoly power; it's an asset, tax them just for having it. Same thing that Sanders said about the banks - tax them for simply being large, and they'll break themselves up. edit: If walled gardens had to pay taxes on their moats, they'd stop digging them.

0xquad 6y ago

I generally support the EFF and think netizens need far more protections than they have, and those need to come through legislation. But I don't get why this mandated interoperability is a good idea. Mandating data portability is one thing, but having the government decide that a company must provide an api seems absurd to me (so far: it's a new idea to me). In the meantime, dear EFF: - Why hasn't the EFF created boilerplate privacy agreement clauses that companies could adopt to prove their ubiquitously claimed "utmost concern for user privacy"? - Why isn't there a vision of how companies could maintain the provenance under which each datum has been acquired (and therefore when they can/can't be shared/sold/etc.)? - What meaning does any privacy agreement have (no matter how consumer friendly) if it can be changed at any time? - Why do NO companies promise to protect user data in the event of an acquisition (in fact they promise the opposite). These seem like action items right down EFF's lane and I keep waiting year after year for the basics to be covered. I criticize as a friend (and small donor).

treis 6y ago
> generally support the EFF and think netizens need far more protections than they have, and those need to come through legislation. But I don't get why this mandated interoperability is a good idea. It does look like a solution in search of a problem to me. Plenty of social networks have grown up while Facebook existed. Off the top of my head Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Viber, Tiktok, Yikyak, LinkedIn. It's not clear what the practical impact of forced interoperability means. It (probably) upends the current revenue model. Who is going to maintain the back end API when the revenue is captured by the front end?
- JetSpiegel 6y ago
  Why do we need 10 "different" apps to send messages between people? Can you imagine needing a different email client to communicate between Gmail and Outlook users?

Animats 6y ago

Data portability, yes. No big argument there. Back-end interoperability, yes. No more locking out TweetDeck, and common applications for all message transports. In particular, back-end interoperability needs to be mandatory for Internet of Things stuff. The lifespan of a cloud service is short, maybe 5 years. That's a big problem for house components. Delegability needs thought. There's bots. There's Snooping as a Service. Technically, back-end interoperabilty implies the ability to delegate. It's more of a contractual issue. Can a service forbid it? Intermediaries and aggregators have their own headaches.

Reelin 6y ago
> back-end interoperability needs to be mandatory for Internet of Things stuff More than that, IoT network communications need to be snoopable by the end user if desired. There's a real threat of devices sending back data you don't want them to and even working together to exfiltrate data from a device that's otherwise blocked from the internet. (There was a startup in the greater Seattle area working on such exfiltration capabilities at one point, euphemistically referred to as "routing at the edge". Frustratingly I can't seem to track them down right now.)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gfodor 6y ago

Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me once Democrats realize that they are literally trying to legally require Facebook rebuild the API that resulted in the Cambridge Analytica scandal they have railed against for years this bill will get dropped for dumb political reasons. Opening up these services like this seems to be one of several prerequisites to preventing great harms, but doing so would be in conflict with a number of expedient political issues the parties have dug in on around platform censorship, data privacy, etc.

polyomino 6y ago
Nonsense bills like this are what will keep social media giants honest. The market won't on its own because the network effects are (largely) insurmountable. However, Facebook has to regain the goodwill of the public and fast, or they'll be legislated out of existence through bills like these.
- gfodor 6y ago
  in case I wasn't clear, I would be thrilled if this bill passed. my point was that short-sighted political tribalism has led politicians to back themselves into corners now that will prevent it, unless the press and public are just too stupid to recognize the contradictions before it does pass.

jFriedensreich 6y ago

I have been wishing for a regulation like this for years. This would be one of the biggest game changers ever, but it is hard to imagine how realistic such a scenario would be because technology moves so fast and facebook fucks up even the apis they are willing to provide all the time. But we need to try at least to tear down the walled gardens and digital despotism of google facebook and apple.

intended 6y ago

> In addition, ad-driven platforms often curate information in ways that benefit advertisers, not users. The ways Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube present content are designed to maximize engagement and drive up quarterly earnings. Can someone describe a model for these services that doesn’t depend on advertising?

stevenalowe 6y ago

Open standards and voluntary cooperation proliferate because they work; legislation does not.