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U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#71

Post by ysavir »

kickscondor wrote: post #69
ysavir wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the question is how to achieve portability without infringing on others' privacy rights. If I'm on facebook and want to export all my comments, that would require exporting all the status updates of the people who's posts I've commented on, which then also includes those contacts, too. There's no such thing as exporting a single node in a network, you need the entire network.

You certainly can export a single node - just depends on your expectations. For example, the Indieweb has already done this in a way that I find acceptable. My blog (kickscondor.com) syndicates all the comments to every post (including deeply nested ones.) And it also captures a copy of all posts that I respond to (all the way up the chain going backwards.) This is sufficient for me. No need to export anything - it's…

> My blog (kickscondor.com) syndicates all the comments to every post

What does this mean?

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#73

Post by silon42 »

danShumway wrote: post #55

> The bill would require communications platforms with more than 100 million monthly active members - Facebook has more than two billion - to allow its users to easily move, or port, their data to another network, Warner’s office said in a statement. Facebook already has a data export feature. You have to manually navigate to that page and download a giant zip file. Cool. The much more important concept being propose…

> should advocate that users have the right to delegate data-access through APIs to third-parties

Not just third parties, but themselves (aka, write/use your own client for messenger/discord/...). This is the only way to get rid of having to use dozens of clients for various networks (apart from total standardization and federation which isn't happening anytime soon)

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#74

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Mindwipe wrote: post #63
jagged-chisel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are "connections" not also "your data"? It's a list of other users, curated by you.

What information is in the list? I might have a photo of me on my Facebook profile. Does a friend of mine get to take that photo with them if they migrate to Gab? I would regard that as a breach of my rights.

And it's worse than that - if it's a photo of both you and them, there's an immediate impasse. Does their right to take their data trump your right to keep a hold of it? Does it depend on who took the picture, or who uploaded it, or when it was taken or how embarrassing it is?

I'm not saying these aren't answerable questions, but I'm very skeptical that the answer is so obvious and non-controversial that we should legally enforce it against all social media platforms.

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#75

Post by jagged-chisel »

Mindwipe wrote: post #63
jagged-chisel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are "connections" not also "your data"? It's a list of other users, curated by you.

What information is in the list? I might have a photo of me on my Facebook profile. Does a friend of mine get to take that photo with them if they migrate to Gab? I would regard that as a breach of my rights.

My question is limited to "the list." I.e. this is the list of people to whom I connected on this network and, perhaps, the connection type (e.g. followed them, allowed to follow you, both tagged in some post, etc.)

But to add my thoughts to your question: I have a photo, I uploaded it to my account, it's my 'data' and I've simply shared it with you (or made it public) such that it is displayed to you. That doesn't make it your data, meaning you don't get it in an export dump. Perhaps you have a client that makes copies of published posts from your network, but exporting those things you consumed (which are not yours, to which you do not have a 'license') should not be the intent of this export functionality.

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#76

Post by bilbo0s »

buboard wrote: post #65
duxup wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least as far as Twitter goes don't they limit some of their APIs like how many users a given set of API keys can use or something like that?

Yeah they severely limit bots and ask for phone numbers and then they 'll ban your number if you use it twice. Who's responsible for that other then the media FUD about russian bots? I really can't blame twitter (and FB) for limiting their platforms here.

Hmm.

That's actually a good question.

Does it outline in this legislation who is responsible if twitter throws open their api's and the company that a user delegated steals the user's data by acting, essentially, as a proxy api for other companies? I would think it's obvious that from the moment you delegate access to your data, Twitter would no longer be responsible. Basically, they should only be responsible for making sure that data is given only to whoever authenticates with the appropriate keys that the user in question authorized. What happens from there should be no longer Twitter's legal problem.

That seems obvious to me, but it's definitely something you would have to check.

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#77

Post by pj1115 »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #51
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #4

Being able to take your data with you is good but most of the value in social media is due to the network effect. If you can't seamlessly being your connections with you, the incumbents will continue to have a huge advantage over newcomers to the market. In the context of social media, how could someone bring their connections with them to a new platform without compromising the rights of those connected to?

Are "connections" not also "your data"? It's a list of other users, curated by you.

If I want to migrate my "list" to another network, wouldn't I need to take some form of PII (and therefore consent) from each person on the list to make it valuable on the new network?

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#78

Post by scarface74 »

romaaeterna wrote: post #60
buboard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, facebook and twitter already have apis for almost all their functions. What's the goal of this legislation?

To break the Facebook and Twitter monopolies.

So Twitter and Facebook have monopolies? Isn’t that kind of the opposite of a monopoly?

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#80

Post by monksy »

baq wrote: post #33
Mirioron wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that kind of makes no sense. It'll be completely out of context and it's not going to provide much value. Wet can't you just link to your Twitter on mastodon?

Somebody might decide that his Twitter account offends somebody important and make it disappear. Or his Twitter might get compromised. Or Twitter might go out of business. Or maybe no reason at all.

Or twitter would cut off that integration because it takes away business from them.
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