US Senators Want Social Media Users To Be Able To Take Their Data With Them (reuters.com) 52
Three U.S. lawmakers active in tech issues introduced a bill on Tuesday that would require social networks like Facebook to allow users to pack up their data and go elsewhere, they said in a statement. From a report: The senators, Republican Josh Hawley and Democrats Mark Warner and Richard Blumenthal, offered the bill at a time when there is growing concern that Facebook, along with Alphabet's Google, have become so powerful that smaller rivals are unable to lure away their users. The bill currently does not have a counterpart in the U.S. House of Representatives, which it will need to become law. 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. Under the bill the companies would be required to maintain an interface to facilitate interoperability. Or users would be allowed to choose another company to manage a user's account settings, content, and online interactions, the statement said.
"Take their data" and go elsewhere? (Score:3)
So the first step is going to be a standardized data format for social media platforms, right?
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How are they going to do that?
Doesn't Oracle keep arguing that APIs are copyrightable works? ;)
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There's a format coming out next year, called html text files. The "social" aspect is the <a href....> part of the file. They work with both social major media platforms: NGINX or Apache, and you can even use them with the more obscure ones. Best of all, all web pages can link to one another, so we already have interoperability.
There are multiple APIs, though. I use the escape-colon-w-q-to-save one. Some people use the other. We haven't yet agreed on a compromise, but keep your eyes peeled.
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There's a format coming out next year, called html text files. The "social" aspect is the <a href....> part of the file. They work with both social major media platforms: NGINX or Apache, and you can even use them with the more obscure ones. Best of all, all web pages can link to one another, so we already have interoperability.
There are multiple APIs, though. I use the escape-colon-w-q-to-save one. Some people use the other. We haven't yet agreed on a compromise, but keep your eyes peeled.
Are they big or little endian? Is there a magic byte or header that would allow both types of systems to use them?
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Standards scare FB (Score:1)
A standardized format could result in Facebook's death as small co's could host the data and exchanges in a competitive way. I'm sure Facebook will fight tooth and nail to prevent such.
Zuckerberg: "Hello, Oracle, can I please borrow your lawyers? You guys are masters at F.U.D. and bri..., I mean confusing clueless judges. I can promise not to use PostgreSql."
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For a typical user, the content is rarely the thing keeping them on a platform (excluding stuff like photos) - its the features the platforms provide and interactions they have with other users, and those won't be portable. Why would people leave when they lose their likes and comments on their posts (as thats what most people are there for)?
Sure, you can move platforms and take *your* content, but that just puts you on another platform with no users, no likes, no comments (because they aren't your data, t
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Those should be portable also. It's true any "new" platform won't recognize users from other platforms who liked or commented as "active" users, but the statuses and textual content should be intact, even if marked as "external" or "imported".
Re: "Take their data" and go elsewhere? (Score:1)
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Good question, and I think you deserve an insightful mod even if you don't see the solution. I can answer for the general approach:
Take your data to a COMPETING social media platform that offers comparable services. Implicit is that you can require the platform you don't like to delete your data when you leave. YOU should possess YOURSELF. Possession is still 9 points of the law, but the difference these days is that it's too easy to make copies and confuse the ownership. Long time ago, if someone wanted to
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Hmmmm.
So, you can require the platform you don't like to destroy all backups? That'll be interesting for them - they have to go through every backup they've made since you joined (or maybe, every backup period - someone might have mentioned you, or included a picture that you were in, on their own page(s)) and remove only the parts you were in?
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That's kind of how GDPR works. They have to delete your data from their backups too.
As for stuff like people quoting your posts they can generally just scrub your name and any other personally identifying data. Most forum software has options to do this now. For stuff like reposted photos if they belong to you (i.e. you own the copyright) then they have to remove them too, otherwise probably not unless they are abusive in some other way.
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Just wanted to note that I slightly disagree regarded the handling of jointly owned data, but can you easily see the reply to the parent comment? (I don't want to repeat all of it here.) Short summary is that I would say you can't oblige the other participants in shared interactions to delete their memories, just as you can't prevent them from testifying against you (in a worst case scenario).
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Hmmmm.
So, you can require the platform you don't like to destroy all backups? That'll be interesting for them - they have to go through every backup they've made since you joined (or maybe, every backup period - someone might have mentioned you, or included a picture that you were in, on their own page(s)) and remove only the parts you were in?
You've opened a can of worms, but your simplistic solution approach suggests you haven't considered the issue too deeply. While I have considered it at some length, I don't know if I can argue my thoughts are deep, but...
Joint information has mutual ownership. I cannot force you to delete your memories our our interactions, and that can be extended to any evidence you have of our mutual interactions. For your simple question, the answer would be "Yes, if all of the persons involved want to store their infor
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So, what if only ONE person involved wants the info removed? If I were to tell FB to remove all references to myself, would
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Now you're just deliberately trying to create complexities and imagine worst case scenarios. The basic principles are simple enough. My personal information should belong to me, and I should be able to control who has it. Your memory of my public behavior or our shared behavior has become part of your personal information, and I cannot control it. I can address each of your scenarios from that perspective, but right now I think that would be a waste of my time.
Tell you what. You finish resolving your new wo
Raises a question (Score:1)
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This is social media we're talking about. So the answer to your question is: none at all.
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Given a platform almost certainly wont let you take other peoples data (comment replies, posts you replied to etc) then a lot of data you export will be missing context or value, so its less a case of "is it really worth taking elsewhere" and more a case of "are people interested in essentially starting out afresh elsewhere with incomplete data"?
You can export your data, but you cant export followers, likes, interactions etc.
This is silly. (Score:2)
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It is a simple query, dump it to tarball and say goodbye.
Not their data (Score:2)
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It's never the users' data to begin with. Don't these senators know anything?
The senators make the laws. If they pass a law that says it is the users' data, then it is the users' data, regardless of what any EULA says.
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Well, not really.
The companies can STILL use that data if they have permssions to use it.
This is more along the lines of defining who OWNs the data and this is leaning towards the citizens owning their own data.
If they want to let a company use it, then have at it.
Think about when HIPAA came into effect. It didn't drive the medical industry out of business,
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They do have permission to use it. It's their data. They can do whatever they'd like with it, just like you can do whatever you'd like with the things you own.
HIPAA is very different. People can't help but give out medical data. Everybody does. It's not like you're going to get an EKG and deliberately giving corporations the rights to use your EKG data. If you post it on Facebook, though, you very deliberately give it to Face
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That's the debate tho.
Even if you tell an entity information about yourself, it is still YOUR information, and a company or entity that you tell this information too, isn't necessarily granted full permission to do as they wish with it.
That is what needs to be codified.
I may give you my name, address and phone number. But it should be up to me wit
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And it's being given to them after legal notices that say, "When you give us your data, it becomes our property. We can do whatever we'd like with it. Here is a list of things we might do with it. It is ours. Do you want to give us your data?" And then people do.
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I"m not on FB, so I'm not familiar with what you sign away in the EULA type things.
However, what about the so called shadow accounts, where FB tracks people that are NOT on FB....?
At a minimum, should those not be FB's property and force them to delete those?
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Unfortunately, I don't think that anybody will ever know what the truth is about what they're doing with data, at least in the US. They just have to buy a few politicians, and then they'll be laws protecting them.
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Not practical - too proprietary (Score:2)
First off, you can already download your data, especially the more "valuable" items like photographs that actually have usefulness outside the platform, from FB and the other big platforms.
However, when it comes to postings and comments, well, there's the problem. Everything is so vastly interlinked - posts have comments and comments have comments and they all link to users and other posts and media and external things - that the data is nearly worthless stand-alone. A comment doesn't have value without t
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>"Still, it is a long shot, and I think (as always) the politicians are sorely underestimating the technical issues and complexities and actual usefulness of their proposal."
+1
"Data" has little value without structure. And the structure is dictated by the programs and applications. And most of it is intertwined with everyone else's data in a way that makes it meaningless on its own. It is like hearing only a single voice in a complex 8-way conference call (except far worse).
I am sympathetic to the ide
Focus Should be on Privacy (Score:2)
They should really be focused on privacy unless they are going to standardize the data formats.
Examples:
- Ring/Amazon can't give away your information/content to police and the like without a warrant or your express consent per request
- Stop domestic spying
- No back doors to encryption
Retirement Accounts (Score:2)
While you're at it, why not unbury that old chestnut and let us have lifelong retirement accounts as well.
Portability? How about delete-ability? (Score:2)
How about before we jump out of the frying pan and into the fire we get some common sense privacy? You want to monitor and track and cookie me? Then PAY ME.
Otherwise I think that any tracking should by law be OPT-IN ONLY. Not opt out, even the opt out options are often times a joke.
And I should be able to wipe my footprint from any of these sites if I should so choose.
Doesn't make for a sustainable business model?
oh well.
Start passing logical currently topical legislation slackers.
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You are opting in by means of the browser and browser mode you choose. And you are paid by them hosting your cat pictures and ill advised dangerous grand-canyon-rail selfies.
My common sense privacy is I don't post my whole fucking life online.
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That's not what i'm talking about.
I'm talking about the tracking data, the location data, the buying habits data, the porn preference data, the OS preference, brand preference, all of that bullshit. I know if i choose to share a pic of my Disney vacation I'm putting myself out there. It all the shit they take.
Oh an EULA, I'll hit cancel. Oh wait, that just means I can't use the device / product.
I want to opt-out. Oh wait , that just means that I opt-out of selling my data to convicted felons , anyone else c
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And I should be able to wipe my footprint from any of these sites if I should so choose.
It will never happen. They never delete data. Ever. Even if they delete the live data (as opposed to marking it "deleted" in the database), there are backups, redndant backups, offline backups, etc. going back to the site's inception. And those backups are all compressed, deduped, encrypted, etc. Removing your twat shot or dick pic would involve loading every backup, decrypting it, decompressing it, then copying it over without your piece of data in it.
It's simply not going to happen, and everyone knows
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And I should be able to wipe my footprint from any of these sites if I should so choose.
It will never happen. They never delete data. Ever. Even if they delete the live data (as opposed to marking it "deleted" in the database), there are backups, redndant backups, offline backups, etc. going back to the site's inception. And those backups are all compressed, deduped, encrypted, etc. Removing your twat shot or dick pic would involve loading every backup, decrypting it, decompressing it, then copying it over without your piece of data in it.
It's simply not going to happen, and everyone knows it.
It could happen though couldn't it? It is feasible. It should happen right? They don't have nearly as many problems in the EU, sure I know they still have problems.
To have a helpless mindset is the quickest path to defeat.
Take their data with them (Score:2)
And you can't take it with you
No matter what you do
No, you can't take it with you
Not the place you're going to
The problem is permanent REMOVAL (Score:1)
Choose your verbs correctly (Score:2)
... to allow its users to easily move, or port, their data to another network
After I move (or transfer) money from my savings account to my checking account, it won't be in both places; although I wish it would.
Facebook et. al. may allow you a copy of your data but they're not going to remove their copy once the data has been sent.
I have the same beef with the status line of browsers. "Transferring data from http://www.blah.com/ [blah.com]". So blah.com doesn't have it anymore? No, the browser is receiving data from blah.com.
Absurd (Score:1)
It's not the data, it's the metadata (Score:2)
Social media platforms monetize the metadata about you, not so much the data. Data expires and becomes useless after a while, as tastes change, your consumer desires shift, you realize that you don't want that new house with that new yard but want to live in a city with a great view and walkable parks, as you decide you don't need that new fossil fuel planet-destroying vehicle but would rather use your e-scooter or solowheel or walk or bike places.
The metadata is the 5D representation of your trendlines and
Look at the Solid project (Score:1)
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Totally missing the point (Score:1)
Nobody is staying on Facebook because they're afraid they can't take all their food and cat pictures with them. For most of the people who use Facebook, the content they upload is ephemeral. Heck, Facebook frequently barfs up some inane memes I posted during the 2016 election, and I'm like "Thanks Zuck, really didn't need to be reminded of that."
People stick around Facebook because it's got that critical mass userbase thing going on. Sooner or later, some other site will Facebook better than Facebook, an
pied piper (Score:2)
somebody has been watching silicon valley on hbo.