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Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

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Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#121

We did replace it, almost 10 years ago. It was called Diaspora[1], no one cared about privacy then. No one really cares about privacy now, at least not enough to do anything about it. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)

Similar story as app.net, the paid twitter replacement that was cool for 33 seconds, arguably poor naming though on both counts given one suggests something else and the second I have no idea how to pronounce.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#122
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If she's happy with this level of privacy though, what's the problem? The problem is that it's not just her privacy she's violating, but the privacy of everyone else, including OP, whose photos get shared by said cousin. When I got back from a trip I took abroad with my family earlier this year, my friends mentioned that they'd seen the photos that "I" had posted to Facebook. Except... I hadn't posted any photos to…

This is a key point that folk are genuinely surprised by when I explain it to them. It's kind of a reverse herd immunity. (I'm sure there's a better analogy.)

> reverse herd immunity (I'm sure there's a better analogy.)

Asymptomatic carrier.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If she's happy with this level of privacy though, what's the problem? The problem is that it's not just her privacy she's violating, but the privacy of everyone else, including OP, whose photos get shared by said cousin. When I got back from a trip I took abroad with my family earlier this year, my friends mentioned that they'd seen the photos that "I" had posted to Facebook. Except... I hadn't posted any photos to…

Turn on the feature to hide photos you're tagged in and tell people you know they're not to show photos of you to other people then? Or tell people not to take photos of you? If Facebook didn't exist, people would still show photos to people in other ways. If someone takes your photo they're more than likely going to show it to somebody so I would assume a low level of privacy by default.

>Turn on the feature to hide photos you're tagged in and tell people you know they're not to show photos of you to other people then?

That does protect you to some level. But throw in machine learning with image processing and simple metadata extraction and while your friends might not see the photo, Facebook can potentially figure out if you're in the photo whether or not you've been tagged, where the photo was taken, what camera the photo was taken with, what mood you're in, who's with you, what clothes you're wearing etc etc. And then they'll sell that data without ever telling you.

I have a bigger issue with that happening than I have issues with friends seeing photos I may not have wanted to posted myself, to be honest.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#124

We did replace it, almost 10 years ago. It was called Diaspora[1], no one cared about privacy then. No one really cares about privacy now, at least not enough to do anything about it. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)

I just joined yesterday.

It will take some time to wind it up. Even fb took a long time to build before it was relavant.

Nobody cared back then bc they hadn't felt they burn of foreign influence on our election.

And diaspora will have to grow. Even some basic things can improve the on boarding process. For example, uploading my profile was diverted due to a cap on picture upload size of 4.2 MB.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#125
post #39

I tried explaining my 20 year old cousin about FB. Her constant argument was "I don't share anything private on FB". She checks in on FB everywhere she goes. Posts her pics all the time. I could not instill any sense of concern for privacy. What I could conclude is that the appeal of social is too great to have any caution. Call me a pessimist, but I don't think FB is going anywhere. People will keep using it inspite…

> I tried explaining my 20 year old cousin about FB. Her constant argument was "I don't share anything private on FB". She checks in on FB everywhere she goes. Posts her pics all the time. I could not instill any sense of concern for privacy. If she's happy with this level of privacy though, what's the problem? Maybe she does fully understand the implications but has a different value system to you? I feel that when…

It's that she's unaware of the negative consequences of hyper social media presence. She seems to have become addicted to the 'likes' of FB. Unless there is a cancer like warning for social media, she's unlikely to give it up.

The lure of being more famous than her friends is too much to resist. Not sure if wrong or right. I would like being famous on HN, StackOverflow, tech blogs etc. Perhaps it's similar.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#126
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen Beaker [0]? It doesn't require you to setup a complex web server and configure a bunch of stuff, you just run the browser and it'll start sharing your website. It's a move back to a truly decentralized web. [0] https://beakerbrowser.com/

Didn’t Opera offer something similar in the past? A small “private space” you could optionally share with others (as long as they used Opera too). I ask because Beaker claims to be “the first and only...”

Opera had Opera Unite, but it was basically a webserver with extensions in the browser, it didn't require the other person to use Opera.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#127
post #83
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually when I creep these people out by confronting them with personal details of their life (which I simply snapped of public Facebook data) they actually are creeped out. So while yours is a interesting thought I highly doubt a lot of people Actually understand the full issue.

It sounds interesting, can you give a concrete example?

Not the person you're replying to, but I had a boss at an old job who liked to make "your mum" jokes as often as humanly possible. It got annoying. Since we worked in forensics and did a lot of OSINT I decided to stop it using Facebook.

Found his Facebook. He didn't have any family listed, for privacy. Friends list wasn't visible either. However his dad and sister, both easily identifiable as such, I found since they had both liked the same profile picture a few years ago, and I could view their relationship (handy trick, go to someones user account, add ?and= followed by the user ID of another user and you can view relationships between anyone). Saw that they had a few mutual friends, For the next week or so I sent him random bits of information about his mum whenever he made a bad "your mum" joke at me (if it was good I didn't particularly care). Previous addresses, streetview screenshot of her house etc. Despite streetview blurring her car's license plate, I could see what make/model/colour it was, which was enough to find the license plate by skimming through photos posted on various sites which let you search by location. So I sent him MOT and road tax reminders too. It was fairly easy to find what schools she had gone to, previous marriages, a company she had started etc. He stopped making "your mum" jokes after a week.

Bear in mind: this was someone who worked in computer security and was actively privacy conscious, and within an hour I had enough information that I could have probably stolen his identity.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people care a lot more today than they used too. The problem is people use facebook because they have to.

If people really cared about their privacy they wouldn't broadcast their personal lives to millions of people (see social media). Until that's corrected (how do you get out of that social cycle where you have to market and yell louder than everyone else?), it's going to continue. People are mad at FB the same way people get mad when they realize they've been in manipulative relationships, but I'm not sure many people…

> If people really cared about their privacy they wouldn't broadcast their personal lives to millions of people

Most FB users certainly do not expect that they are sending out their photos and opinions and chats to millions of people. They have a circle of friends and family that they think are behind a wall called their network, and that circle is usually a few hundred people or less.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#129

Why can't I just pay for FB a monthly fee and as such they have no need to make money by selling my data or spamming me with crappy ads?

A usual CPC (cost per click) that an advertiser is willing to pay is somewhere between 50 to 150 cents. Let's say it is 100, and you clicked on 10 ads in a month. So, Facebook earned $10 off you. Now, you should be willing to pay more than that for Facebook to prefer the model you are suggesting. My math above is highly simplistic. For e.g., you'd say you aggressively use an ad blocker and never click on ads. Fair en…

Who clicks 10 ads a month? I don't think I've clicked 10 ads in total since getting on the web for the first time in 1997...

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#130
post #4

I think in the long run we will use a decentralised/federated system. Privacy concerns aside, it just doesn't make sense to rely on one service or expect one social network to meet everyone's needs/desires.

I keep seeing the suggestion of 'federation' for soc.media and am not sure understand the use of this word. What are the characteristics of a 'federated system' and how is it immune to the problem of centralization? What are some successful examples?

I’m going to be a bit ironic here and say that email is an example of a federated system.

I’m being ironic cause we did end up with a centralized system for email. Not a single center, but a few: Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. Because of abuse (spam, primarily) and because of ease of use.

Having an easy to use and safe federated system is discovering-the-theory-of-relativity hard, in my opinion.

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