Hi,
I wasn't going to post on this topic but as it still has steam, I'm giving my 2 cents after Jon Lebkowsky last email [which I agree with].
My main thing is participatory e-democracy, but I've been working on the privacy angle re social networks for a few years, and I've a solution, but its a year+ away from launch, when its in beta, I'll ask the list to have a poke around :)!
As Jon points out though there are other networks, some with much better privacy then the monster that is face book. I'm not sure if you if you guys ever came across diaspora ? Diaspora was a good concept and the first social network [to my knowledge] to be funded by crowd sourcing [kickstarter], though horrid UI when they finally launched.
The only true competition to face book [in the west anyway] is google, and talk about jumping the frying pan into the fire. You have the megaliths of google on one side and microsoft/facebook/skype on the other, neither in my opinion inspire confidence, or trust.
The main issues with the alternative sites is their usability, and momentum. Very few gather enough momentum, or offer enough to encourage users to shift.
Most users do understand and are angry with facebook [or google etc], but they at present aren't given true alternatives that keep the ease of communication that they are used too, and maintain their privacy, so they accept the trade off. In the last 2 years about 5 of my friends dropped face book, then came back.
My cousins [14 & 19] are much more careful in the way they post or pm [progress], then they used to be even only a year ago, my friends unfortunately aren't, though they dont like or trust it. They aren't alone in that, as [if you use face book] you can see every 4 months or so a message invariably appears posted by someone "I own all my copyrights/ photos / posts etc]", face book don't have their users trust, and that is the beginning of their end, slow though it is.
Ps
I do use face-book, I post and pm nothing I wouldnt be happy for my grandma or the government to see or read, its set with a fake name [off my first manifesto], attached to a free email account set to a fake name, its not linked to my phone, and I've have no photos up of me up, and I've never been personally tagged ever, as my friends know of "my paranoia", their cool, and the only ones I want to keep in contact with. After the article I did wonder should I leave out of a sense of social responsibility, I wont because I need to keep an eye on the competition :P, though it has given me an additional layer of guilt in staying!
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [liberationtech] CNN writer on leaving Facebook
From: Jon Lebkowsky <jon.lebkow...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, February 26, 2013 9:36 pm
To: liberationtech <liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu>
Cc: liberationtech <liberationt...@mailman.stanford.edu>
On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Paul Bernal (LAW) <paul.ber...@uea.ac.uk> wrote:2. On real names, it's as much about fighting the bigger battle for the need to allow anonymity. If real names becomes the norm, we're in real trouble when the going gets tough...I think there's room for platforms that do both, and maybe a great opportunity for someone to develop something like the Tor Project of social networks.3. The monetization issue isn't just about what's happening now, but that there's an increasing drive to squeeze revenue from our data. Sponsored stories, the Instagram saga etc just give a clue where it's headed.I get the point of voting with your feet, but I don't think a few people leaving FB will fix the age-old problem of greed. It's a wicked problem.4. Profiling is an issue for more people than you might think - the Raytheon RIOT stuff hints at that. More on that tomorrow!Looking forward to hearing more.5. Again, think of the extended use of this - Facebook will be mined more and more by those with less benign uses.Would love to hear more about that, but I think this comes back to digital literacy, thinking about what you share.6. Yes, there ARE alternatives, but who's using them? Ask a class of my students, and they're ALL on Facebook...Right, but a popular service is not necessarily a monopoly. I could get an argument that we have an oligopoly (the stacks).best,Jon--Jon Lebkowsky (@jonl)Jon at Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Wikipedia
Work: Polycot Associates: Advanced Internet Solutions Twitter | Facebook
Blog: Weblogsky.com: Smart Thinking About Culture, Media, and the InternetActivism: EFF-Austin
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