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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

#161

Post by concordDance »

jonfw wrote: post #135
dependenttypes wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of data ownership is a very anti-freedom/pro-copyright concept.

With such a shallow view of freedom, physical property ownership is a very anti-freedom concept as well, is it not? Ownership of a house is an infringement on the freedoms of other poeple who want to live there? Intellectual property is no different than any other sort of property. The right to own property is invaluable, and serves the purpose of maximizing freedoms in the long run.

> Intellectual property is no different than any other sort of property.

Is this rhetorical or literal?

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

#162

Post by marknadal »

You can already do that with https://github.com/eraeco/party.lol (Open Source extension)!

It hijacks input/comment areas & saves your tweet/post to your own personal local archive in the browser, and then encrypts the message so Facebook/Google can't spy on it.

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

#163

Post by lacker »

Facebook is getting pulled in two directions. First, for competitive reasons people want a Facebook platform that can actually do useful things like export data.

The problem is that the other direction is for Facebook to keep your data private. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was basically blaming Facebook for giving users the ability to export their data to applications that subsequently sold it to Cambridge Analytica.

Senators are not writing code, so they are not required to be logically consistent. I predict a future in which Facebook gets fined no matter what they do.

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

#164

Post by pkaye »

pjc50 wrote: post #138
dspillett wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should advocate that users have the right to delegate data-access through APIs to third-parties From my PoV, for my purposes, as a technically minded user I might agree. But thinking about the numpty-on-the-street, this could be a privacy nightmare with people being easily conned into allowing a random application full unrestricted access to slurp their data. This can happen already, of course, but the provider…

The solution I think that the PDS2 "open" banking system has come up with is that all the API integrators are also subject to regulatory approval. So you can't just spin up a shadowy data-slurping shell and connect it to people's bank accounts.

I'm sure the regulators are knowledgeable about APIs.

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

#165

Post by ysavir »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #146
scarface74 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And look at what happened when California tried to regulate Uber to force them to treat drivers as employees. Now freelancers in other industries who don’t want to be employees are having to jump through hoops.

> look at what happened when California tried to regulate Uber to force them to treat drivers as employees I agree, it's a mess. But the solution isn't to bar all regulation ex ante as illegitimate.

No one is saying we should bar all regulation. But we do need to be careful, and _very_ knowledgeable and intentful, when we pass legislation in this field.

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

#166

Post by mopsi »

whatshisface wrote: post #142
pjc50 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution I think that the PDS2 "open" banking system has come up with is that all the API integrators are also subject to regulatory approval. So you can't just spin up a shadowy data-slurping shell and connect it to people's bank accounts.

Then we'd have to apply for website licenses at the California Department of Cyber Vehicles. I hope my website is up to the Cyber Building Code. Yikes.

Would you rather have everyone who can afford a car drive around without any oversight?

Building Code for websites is something I would be willing to support, e.g. no plain-text password storage allowed.

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

#167

Post by ysavir »

kickscondor wrote: post #101
ysavir wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My blog (kickscondor.com) syndicates all the comments to every post What does this mean?

When someone wants to comment, they post - not on my blog - but on their blog. If their blog supports Webmentions, my blog will get notified and I will 'syndicate' their comment - a copy will get placed on my blog. This way everyone in the conversation had copies of the entire conversation in case one blog goes down. (Does that clear it up at all?)

It does, and that is _one_ way in which to export a single node--assuming we're all using this Indieweb blog software. But I have heavy doubts that such software will become the norm, or that it will be the expectation of whatever data schema this bill ends up supporting.

I appreciate the theory of your approach and how it can be used, and while it does directly respond to the immediate statement I made, I don't think it realistically captures how my statement applies to the broader context, when and if this law becomes implemented.

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

#168

Post by scarejunba »

mopsi wrote: post #166
whatshisface wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we'd have to apply for website licenses at the California Department of Cyber Vehicles. I hope my website is up to the Cyber Building Code. Yikes.

Would you rather have everyone who can afford a car drive around without any oversight? Building Code for websites is something I would be willing to support, e.g. no plain-text password storage allowed.

Meanwhile, the reality of building code:

User must rotate their password every 7 days or be locked out pending in-person approval. The software must enforce this restriction while allowing a two-hour grace period on days when daylight savings changes.

You: this is retarded and anti-security.

Them: the lawyers are on their way. Stay put.

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

#169

Post by dominotw »

buboard wrote: post #144
scarface74 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if we granular defined monopoly - HN could be defined as a monopoly. But the fact that people have LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc accounts does show that people will use more than one service. How many people are in multiple Slack groups.

Hn and reddit are the same format. And linkedin could easily merge with facebook. But facebook and twitter don’t mix > How many people are in multiple Slack groups Aren’t they using a single app?

> Hn and reddit are the same format.

No they are not. there are no sub-HNs.

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

#170

Post by xamuel »

ahartmetz wrote: post #45
zubspace wrote: post #28

> 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. I assume that this proposal is based on good intentions. But how they want to overcome the technical hurdles is a mystery to me. Who decides, how facebook should structu…

The law will probably use words like "reasonable" and "common". While legal language is supposed to be as precise as possible, it is fine to be as vague as necessary, too. In practice, I'd expect exporters to export in a format that doesn't cause them huge contortions, and importers to write the converters. Any lawsuits about unreasonably obfuscated formats would be quite messy, but maybe it's time for the legal syst…

>it is fine to be as vague as necessary, too

And it should be no less vague than necessary. A decade or so ago, XML was all the rage, can you imagine if a bunch of laws had been stamped in stone mandating XML everywhere? Yuck!

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