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Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

nytimes.com

141–150 of 281 posts

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I don't think so, it would be good if someone did a study on this though. Most people I know think privacy is important. I do think people are communicating via other mediums more than before though. It's anecdotal but most of my family and friends just gravitate towards iMessage , Facetime and Telegram to communicate by default now. Could it be that people don't care about this issue because they care about…

> Most people I know think privacy is important. The question is, how representative are those people of the population at large?

>how representative are those people of the population at large?

Another question is whether people truly understand their privacy exposure? They know FB has some information on them because they submit it, but they don't know how much info in total (sites visited, location tracking, etc), how that data is combined/used, who has access to it, etc.

And, they assume that whatever FB is doing with their data must be OK/legal because laws.

I think that's what we saw with reactions to these recent revelations. When an inkling of the real privacy exposure surfaced, people freaked.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't this exist already? Sounds very feasible. Your "friends" are people in a given mailing-list, and even a minute action such as "like" could also just be an email sent to that mailing-list, with some proper tagging in the subject header, so that the email client knows not to display the email but rather act on it as an event handler.

One important functionality gap, between FB and email, is that email always creates copies that are easily controlled by the recipient by design. While it's technically true that a FB recipient could be auto-scraping everything, practically that's not true, which allows people to retroactively delete things with a large chance of success. I feel like reasonably effective retro-active deletion is an important feature…

It's just not a reasonable expectation. Either you give the control over the data to a central authority, or you give the control to the user, you can't have both.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#143

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)

Man I remember the enthusiasm behind Diaspora like it was yesterday. I can still see in my minds eye that NYTimes article photo of the creators sitting around like they just invented cold fusion or something.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html

I looked what they were up to now: Suicide, Snapchat, backerkit.com (crowdfunding related service), unknown.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#144
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm always surprised by how little services charge to remove advertising. YouTube will do it for $9.99/month.

Only in the US, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, and South Korea though.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#145

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/

I actually tried this a while ago, and found that the audience also had to use Beaker to access the content. That's a huge barrier if current browsers don't support this.

Beaker uses Dat protocol as opposed to HTTP under the hood. Dat protocol support is coming to Brave browser, probably Firefox next. The P2P web is about to take off.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#146

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)

It was not about privacy, it still isn't about privacy. It's about usability, and the flocking to Mastodon when there are better options around is the proof of this theory of mine.

Yes. It's absolutely about four simple steps:

1. Going to a mobile-first website or app.

2. Clicking a link.

3. Typing in your new e-mail and password.

4. Being able to add anyone in the world as friends.

It cannot be about local "hubs" vs the global "public" / federation, being forced to make that distinction would feel like a step backwards for the users. It can be distributed in the back end, but not in the front end.

It also needs to look beautiful.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#147

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…

You can enable to only tag photos after your approval.

You can add a filter on your profile but the other people did post a photo which include yourself on their wall. So mutual friends still see the post no matter your security settings.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#148
post #122
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Asymptomatic carrier.

An asymptomatic carrier is one who exhibits no symptoms of the illness but is carrier who can infect others. I don't believe that is the right analogy here.

With herd immunity you have a group with a large rate of participation, which effectively immunizes those that haven't been.

Facebook is the opposite in that you may not be "infected" but if everyone around you is "infected" you might as well be, because Facebook will piece together your information based on what your friends make available.

Plague almost starts to sound like a better analogy...

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#149

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

>The problem is people use facebook because they have to.

It's remarkable how common this opinion is given its obvious shallowness. Nobody has to use Facebook. What are the consequences of not? You can't chat with your friends or view their selfies or see event listings. Or rather to do these things, you have to make an effort to use some other more private mode of communication like phone or in-person or classifieds or whatever. It's easier to use Facebook than to not.

That is an extremely far cry from "having to" use the service. The problem really is people are lazy, and use Facebook because it saves them time, effort, and energy. In most cases, people care about this saved energy more than they do their privacy.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#150
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was not about privacy, it still isn't about privacy. It's about usability, and the flocking to Mastodon when there are better options around is the proof of this theory of mine.

Yes. It's absolutely about four simple steps: 1. Going to a mobile-first website or app. 2. Clicking a link. 3. Typing in your new e-mail and password. 4. Being able to add anyone in the world as friends. It cannot be about local "hubs" vs the global "public" / federation, being forced to make that distinction would feel like a step backwards for the users. It can be distributed in the back end, but not in the front…

Anybody check out https://mewe.com
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