Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 199 posts

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

#81

Post by danShumway »

buboard wrote: post #56
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…

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

Twitter's API is notoriously bad for 3rd party apps.[0] In order to use the standard API, you need to register for a developer account, which requires manual approval and which Twitter can deny for any reason.[1]

Facebook has a history of outright suing 3rd party apps.[2]

If I can log into Twitter, I should also be able to update my account with an HTTP request. That's it. I shouldn't need to sign an agreement, or tell them why I'm programmatically accessing my account, or dig into a settings page. I should be able to grant an OAUTH permission to anyone that gives them access to that API, and Facebook shouldn't be able to sue that person just because they got around an IP block. That should just be part of my account.

I don't know if this legislation guarantees that (the article doesn't link to the text of the bill). Most tech legislation is bad, so there's a good chance it doesn't. But the principle remains.

[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/16/17699626/twitter-third-pa...

[1]: https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/developer-porta...

[2]: https://www.eff.org/cases/facebook-v-power-ventures

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

#82

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #67
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once content by or about you is out there, neither you nor anyone else really has the power to force anyone to delete it If you port your data to every social network on the planet, an act tantamount to publishing, yes, your data will be public. That isn't an argument against granting users this right. Social media companies distributed users' data when it was in said companies' interests. Letting users make that d…

Honest question (I'm not making the connection on my own, so please help me out): how does giving me the ability to instruct a social network to delete my information (and a law to enforce that instruction) infringe on the network's first amendment rights?

> how does giving me the ability to instruct a social network to delete my information (and a law to enforce that instruction) infringe on the network's first amendment rights?

There is a difference between the right to deletion and the right to be forgotten. Right to deletion is "I gave you these data, these data are mine, please delete them." Right to be forgotten means "you have these data, they concern me, please delete them".

Say you tweet something. That tweet, under current law, is Twitter's. Let's say a right to deletion is enacted. Now, you can require Twitter to delete the tweet from its records. This is great!

Now say that while the tweet was up, a newspaper quoted it. Now, when someone searches your name, that article comes up. A right to be forgotten means you can require search engines de-list that article from your search results.

Rights to deletion don't necessarily interfere with the First Amendment because they concern your first-party data. Rights to be forgotten, by dealing with third-party data, often public, published data, are more problematic.

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

#83

Post by scarface74 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70
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.

> 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 The bill [1] is ambiguous on the definition of user data (§ 2(9)). There is latitude with this definition, from rich portability (as you describe) to bare-bones portability (simply metadata, e.g. X commented on Y's post on such and such data). > There's no such thing…

The bill [1] is currently ambiguous....

A bill written by a bunch of clueless lawmakers to legislate technology - there couldn’t possibly be any unintended consequences.

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

#84

Post by bilbo0s »

neuroticfish wrote: post #64
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…

>Beyond advocating for data-exports, we should advocate that users have the right to delegate data-access through APIs to third-parties. IMO we should first and foremost be advocating for the right to have our data destroyed.

I agree. But this is the government, they are definitely going to be loathe to accede to that request.

This is a "take what we can get" type of step.

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

#85

Post by jagged-chisel »

pj1115 wrote: post #77
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.

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?

It is indeed arguable that the data item relating two people is owned by both and necessitates consent for republishing. Export though ... it's still 'mine' even if shared ... I don't know, this bit is a little sticky.

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

#87

Post by sasasassy »

scarface74 wrote: post #78
romaaeterna wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To break the Facebook and Twitter monopolies.

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

They are different kinds of websites.

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

#88

Post by JumpCrisscross »

scarface74 wrote: post #83
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 The bill [1] is ambiguous on the definition of user data (§ 2(9)). There is latitude with this definition, from rich portability (as you describe) to bare-bones portability (simply metadata, e.g. X commented on Y's post on such and such data). > There's no such thing…

The bill [1] is currently ambiguous.... A bill written by a bunch of clueless lawmakers to legislate technology - there couldn’t possibly be any unintended consequences.

> A bill written by a bunch of clueless lawmakers to legislate technology

This has been Silicon Valley's party line for why we can't be regulated by governments, and should instead be left to self regulate. While I agree with that for start-ups, it's patently failed with Big Tech.

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

#89

Post by Alex3917 »

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…

> Facebook already has a data export feature.

No it doesn't. It doesn't have the phone numbers or email addresses for the vast majority of people, even the ones who have their email address and phone number in their profile.

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

#90

Post by jagged-chisel »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #74
Mindwipe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 le…

Here's where law gets complex. Who took the photo? They hold the copyright. Who's in the photo? They have some [limited?] publicity rights. Perhaps those in the photo would need to consent to have the photo republished, which is not, IMO, technically enforceable, but only legally enforceable when someone hires a lawyer/files suit.
Post reply on HN