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Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

calnewport.com

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Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#61

I thought this was a well-written piece. I would love to see a "return to the internet" movement in 2018. The author suggests everyone "acquire your own damn digital land." And I think this is the way forward. In 2005 or the pre-FB era being a "techie" was a personal distinction. I feel that now most people have become "techies" in varying degrees, either out of necessity or general interest. I mention this because I…

The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy. The only way to ensure that your content doesn't get reshared without your permission is to create a tightly locked-down walled garden. If you're really worried, you need some sort of DRM too. And if you're really really worried, you need global laws th…

> You can't have private, distributed data. You have to pick.

I think it should be possible by leveraging public-key encryption. That's going to require something beyond Wordpress though.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy." Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation? Content control, copyright and DRM are orthogonal to the issue of privacy. Also I don't really understand the use of the phrase "t…

>Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation? A website that any old person can access means it's a website that any number of bots can crawl over and aggregate. Now you're basically back where we started with Facebook.

A crawler has no way of knowing whether or not I visited a site. A crawler doesn't have access to cookie data or HTTP access logs. So no we are not "back where we started with Facebook."

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#63
post #47

> For those who don’t crave recognition, it induces a digital life that’s more localized to closer friends and family — a state that’s more congruent with our fundamental human instincts. It's a noble goal. To achieve it, the author suggests that people buy a domain name, spend $4 a month on web hosting, and manually install Wordpress. The author leaves out ssl, so I assume either the person is going to pay some more…

> To achieve it, the author suggests that people buy a domain name, spend $4 a month on web hosting, and manually install Wordpress. The author leaves out ssl, so I assume either the person is going to pay some more for a cert or spend time learning about LetsEncrypt and installing CertBot. > Add to that Wordpress maintenance time and time installing plugins. For most of us it would be more efficient to just use html…

Hmm I suppose static site generators actually are more secure and stable too right?

If it's just a static server, then it won't require the maintenance of core, plugin updates that WordPress and other CMS's need, just the web server updates.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy. The only way to ensure that your content doesn't get reshared without your permission is to create a tightly locked-down walled garden. If you're really worried, you need some sort of DRM too. And if you're really really worried, you need global laws th…

>"The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy." Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation? Content control, copyright and DRM are orthogonal to the issue of privacy. Also I don't really understand the use of the phrase "t…

Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation?

You can't publish your site/blog/domain/presence privately to your friends. That venue does not substitute for Facebook. When talk about replacing social media, we have to accept that most people don't want to share their baby photos etc with the world.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#65
My personal take is that over all, `application specific` social platforms (SP) are working just fine like Github (SP for coding) and Yelp (SP for local listings). There's a general goal that people go to get the resources they desire.

However, Facebook as come to be a `SP for media`, which is why its generally known as social media. There's just no general purpose on FB other than to share media articles nowadays.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#66
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to think of social protocols less as a technical solution and more as what I'd describe in my day job as a 'business process'. Sure, part of this will be tech-enabled and parts will be fully automated, but I feel that what is really lacking is an internet etiquette that can be abstracted over different channels or platforms. Consider Facebook. With the friend request it invented a new social protocol…

Only that the concept of a friend and a friend request existed before Facebook.

Sure, but I'd argue the Facebook friend request is different to, say, the MSN friend request. One felt like adding someone to an address book, the other felt like officially adding someone to your circle of friends.

Probably subjective, but therein lies the insight into why Facebook is so culturally significant.

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The problem with the idea of going back to a distributed internet is that it directly contradicts the primary thing people in the #DeleteFacebook rant about: Privacy." Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation? Content control, copyright and DRM are orthogonal to the issue of privacy. Also I don't really understand the use of the phrase "t…

>Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation? A website that any old person can access means it's a website that any number of bots can crawl over and aggregate. Now you're basically back where we started with Facebook.

HTTP Basic authentication

Re: Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media

#68
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only that the concept of a friend and a friend request existed before Facebook.

Sure, but I'd argue the Facebook friend request is different to, say, the MSN friend request. One felt like adding someone to an address book, the other felt like officially adding someone to your circle of friends. Probably subjective, but therein lies the insight into why Facebook is so culturally significant.

Well, I don't see how it's very much different from, say, LiveJournal friend request (except that it doesn't have to be mutually accepted) or a similar feature of MySpace (I think they had it too) or even last.fm.
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