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The actual term they are looking for is social web protocol. As others have pointed out, though, an open social protocol would quickly degenerate into a wretch
by lukifer 14y ago
The actual term they are looking for is social web protocol.
As others have pointed out, though, an open social protocol would quickly degenerate into a wretched hive of ads and spam. The underlying problem to solve is identity, which the existing social networks attempt to solve through real-name policies, social conventions, and pro-active policing, to various degrees of success.
This is going to be unpopular to say on HN, but there would be upsides to a government-issued internet ID card, that allowed to someone to declare unambiguously which actual human they are (ideally on an opt-in basis).
Would the inevitable abuses of this power be worth the benefits? Probably not. But authenticated identity is the core problem that needs to be solved for an open social protocol to really work; without it, you're trying to craft TCP/IP without IP addresses.
- acqq 14y agoWhat would be the upsides of the government issued internet ID in your opinion please? Compare such an ID with the stuff everybody already has in his wallet.
- lukifer 14y agoKeep in mind, I meant it in an abstract sense; we could just as easily use existing government IDs (state driver's license, SSN, etc) rather than create a new one. Hardware biometrics are an option (in theory), and would also eliminate the terrible security practices inherent to email+password. What matters is not the unique identifier; the real benefit is the threat of punishment for fraud, and the "single source of truth", whether that's a government, or something else. We have this, for better or worse, in other aspects of communication infrastructure (names, addresses, phone numbers), but there is no equivalent for the web (except perhaps for domains). I'm glad that an anonymous information-sharing network exists, but I think a non-anonymous flavor (AOL : www :: Facebook : ???) would be a societal boon as well.
- orianmarx 14y agoI agree that this is very much an issue of identity, something I wrote about in my previous post: http://www.orianmarx.com/2012/07/24/a-better-social-web/ http://www.orianmarx.com/2012/07/24/a-better-social-web/