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I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it

theguardian.com

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Re: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it

#251

Post by discordance »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #80

Surprised that no one mentioned the new EU data protection directive, which goes a long way to fix the first issue mentioned in the article, the loss of control over our personal data (only for users in Europe though). I studied it in detail as I work in data analysis and consult companies on this, and I honestly think it is one of the best laws produced by the EU so far: It gives users a multitude of rights such as…

The new EU data protection directive is a huge win for users. I think it's going to be amazingly hard (and expensive) for enterprise and SMB to comply. The amount of work and liability to prepare for is massive.

For any smart consultants who are up on PII compliance and associated data security practices, there's an endless amount of work here.

Re: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it

#252

Post by throwawaycopy »

schoen wrote: post #182
throwawaycopy wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DMCA has incentivized everything we see our current corporate-dictated web environment by making none of these businesses liable for any of their actions. The spread of misinformation is a kind of emergent phenomenon. The democratic nature of physical reality hasn't led to every publication turning into the National Enquirer.

In this context you might mean the CDA, which provides a different set of immunities. Edit: also note that misinformation isn't necessarily defamatory and so even if online intermediaries were liable for content, there wouldn't necessarily be a legal remedy to suppress most "misinformation". For example, there's probably no aggrieved party who can sue to stop a hoax or urban legend about nonexistent persons.

If Facebook or Google were to be held liable for the content on their platforms they would not have the same business model that incentivizes outrageous and inflammatory nonsense. They wouldn't have business models that didn't directly attribute personal ownership over authored works.

This isn't about people being liable for spreading misinformation, this is about a business model that thrives on misinformation.

Re: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it

#253

Post by ThePhysicist »

Silhouette wrote: post #249
ThePhysicist wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies need to separate personal data from other data as early as possible. Yes, this requires some work and rethinking of data structures, it is doable though. Why would it be impossible to do this in your opinion? Do you have a more concrete example that we can discuss? In General, I think requiring that companies do not hold on to your personal data indefinitely is a pretty reasonable regulation. If there were…

Companies need to separate personal data from other data as early as possible. Yes, this requires some work and rethinking of data structures, it is doable though. Why would it be impossible to do this in your opinion? I'm very wary of making that assumption, because so much data could potentially be personal data even if it's not obvious. Remember that the real criterion here is data that is or could be linked to an…

IP addresses are an interesting example, as they're explicitly mentioned as personal data in the directive since in many contexts they're sufficiently unique to associate them with a given user.

Really would like to discuss this further, if you're interested feel free to send me a mail (discoverable via my profile)

Re: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it

#254

Post by scholia »

chopin wrote: post #243
scholia wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that one crucial factor is what you might call "the destruction of the gatekeepers". In politics, you had systematic lying that was intended to deceive people, and lies led directly to Brexit in the UK and Trump's election in the USA. There's a reasonably good account in "Donald Trump breaks the conservative media" http://uk.businessinsider.com/conservative-media-trump-drudg... In the health field, we'…

>their honest fact-checked newspapers Of which newspapers you are talking? I don't think such a thing exists.

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The LA Times, the Guardian etc... plus AP and Reuters.

They all have trained journalists, sub-editors, and fact checkers. They all correct errors when they make them.

Re: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it

#255

Post by marcus_holmes »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #187
marcus_holmes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't beautiful pages. We geeks, who can understand the code, decry the complexity of a beautiful page and prefer not to go there. But we're 1% of the audience. The other 99% are used to equating beauty and style with quality. More style == more quality. Less style == less quality. The pages we love because of their simplicity don't do well in the mass market because of their simplicity. I have taken to callin…

Most of the really unskilled users struggle with the complexity of the average webpage. Ads that imitate contents, videos, pull-down menus... they get lost in it.

Remember that for the 99% of the population that aren't us, form > function.

They don't care if it's hard to use, as long as it looks good.

We're weird because we think form follows function.

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