Should Social Networks Let You Take Your Followers to Other Services? (msn.com) 75
The Washington Post reports on the "My Friends My Data" coalition, a group of start-up founders "working to push tech giants to adopt a new industry-wide standard that would allow users to transfer their followings from one app to another, thereby creating more competition between platforms."
"Large social media companies are intentionally holding our personal contact information hostage," said Daniel Liss, founder and CEO of Dispo, a photography-based social network. "This limits consumer choice, stymies competition and inhibits free speech. We are committed to giving our community members control of their friend data...."
MFMD's founding members include a who's who of buzzy social apps like Dispo, Itsme, Clash App, Muze, Spam app and Collage, which together have received more than $100 million in venture funding and amassed tens of millions of downloads. The group has issued letters to Meta, TikTok, Snap, Twitter and other large social platforms calling on them to join their crusade. As the start-ups have found, competing with tech giants like Meta or YouTube is difficult when the top talent on the Internet is essentially locked in to specific platforms because of their inability to take followers elsewhere.
Many creators are already on board with MFMD's initiative. Some learned lessons about ownership the hard way after the fall of Vine. Many top Vine stars were overleveraged, investing all their energy in building out their following on the short-form video platform. When the app shuttered in 2016 those who hadn't used Vine to springboard to other apps like YouTube were left without access to the massive fandoms they had built....
[Liss] said that in addition to putting public pressure on the tech giants he hopes the MFMD can be a political force as well. "I'm very comfortable engaging in the political process on behalf of what we think is right," Liss said. "Not just for our companies but also for the next generation of consumer start-ups."
Eugene Park, a gaming Twitch streamer in Los Angeles with 300,000 followers, likes the idea of making followers transferrable to other services, telling the Post it "would be taking power from the tech companies and putting it in the hands of creators who really make up these giant platforms."
In the meantime, the article points out, TikTok users "have taken to referring to other apps like Instagram and YouTube using 'algospeak' pseudonyms, because they say even uttering the name of a competitor can downrank your content."
MFMD's founding members include a who's who of buzzy social apps like Dispo, Itsme, Clash App, Muze, Spam app and Collage, which together have received more than $100 million in venture funding and amassed tens of millions of downloads. The group has issued letters to Meta, TikTok, Snap, Twitter and other large social platforms calling on them to join their crusade. As the start-ups have found, competing with tech giants like Meta or YouTube is difficult when the top talent on the Internet is essentially locked in to specific platforms because of their inability to take followers elsewhere.
Many creators are already on board with MFMD's initiative. Some learned lessons about ownership the hard way after the fall of Vine. Many top Vine stars were overleveraged, investing all their energy in building out their following on the short-form video platform. When the app shuttered in 2016 those who hadn't used Vine to springboard to other apps like YouTube were left without access to the massive fandoms they had built....
[Liss] said that in addition to putting public pressure on the tech giants he hopes the MFMD can be a political force as well. "I'm very comfortable engaging in the political process on behalf of what we think is right," Liss said. "Not just for our companies but also for the next generation of consumer start-ups."
Eugene Park, a gaming Twitch streamer in Los Angeles with 300,000 followers, likes the idea of making followers transferrable to other services, telling the Post it "would be taking power from the tech companies and putting it in the hands of creators who really make up these giant platforms."
In the meantime, the article points out, TikTok users "have taken to referring to other apps like Instagram and YouTube using 'algospeak' pseudonyms, because they say even uttering the name of a competitor can downrank your content."
You think that's necessary? (Score:3)
Everyone and their dog spams their "follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, whatever" links at every single chance they have anyway, what would this accomplish except taking the decision out of the hands of the people and putting even more into the hands of those useless spongers known as influenza?
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Short answer is "No, I don't want my to be cross site."
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So how about considering a solution? Or do you disagree with the basic idea of being allowed to take your own data somewhere else?
I would moderate (if I ever got a mod point to give and also dreaming that the Slashdot moderation system had been improved) your comment (and this FP thread) as especially shallow since there is a pretty obvious technological solution approach: APIs that would allow you to continue interacting with your friends on the websites you had moved away from.
By the way, that is one way
Re:You think that's necessary? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not your data. The instant you post it, it becomes the property of the website operator to do with as they see fit.
Read the TOS.
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I should have clarified that I was pretending the laws and ToS respected (or at least considered) morality instead of being driven entirely by well placed bribes to the cheapest politicians. I certainly haven't forgotten that difference between theory and reality, but sometimes I'm thinking too much about the sky castles...
Having said "Aye, there's the rub", I really cannot imagine a solution path in America that moves along the better road. Yes, the Europeans do seem to understand these problems more clear
Re: You think that's necessary? (Score:2)
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NAK
Re: You think that's necessary? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some concerns here:
1. I might not want followers on platform A to also follow me on platform B because it's two different platforms/subjects.
2. As a follower on platform A then I don't want to be exposed to stuff on platform B based on whom I'm following on A.
3. I don't want my interests to be too strongly mapped/linked. After all it might be used against me.
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Basically the same answer to all of your concerns: You would look for a website that does things the way you want them to be done. Focusing on your first example, you'd want a website that each rejects requests from Platform A in general, or perhaps a website that informs you of the incoming requests and allows you to decide which, if any, of those requests you're willing to accept.
The key is to have the choice in the first place, but the objective of the giant corporate cancers is to remove your choices. T
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It's not your data. It's not even Twitter's data. It is fully private. That is, the mapping between a Twitter account and a Facebook account should not be owned by anyone but the user.
So if I follow you on Twitter and you want to somehow automatically cause my Facebook account to follow you? No thanks!
However the summary contains a very valid point: if indeed content creators can't even ask their subscribers to follow them on a new service without being algorithmically downranked, that is very monopolistic.
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Not sure how to parse your reply, but I think it's mostly because we're dealing with complicated issues here. I do think the entire game has been tilted in favor of monopolies, so from the lowly customers' side we're probably screwed before we start playing. (Some of the monopolies are disguised, for examples as monopsonies or as industry "trade groups".)
However the key focus is on confusion about "your data". In the moral sense, and even in the sense of describing what it is, the personal data is about you
Re: You think that's necessary? (Score:3)
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indeed, the root problem though is lack in elementary education so the influenza is even a thing, but what government or corporation on earth wants a population capable of critical thinking and peace of mind, right?
these are just opportunists that can't get the critical mass they hoped for their genius social apps, whoring for a bit notoriety and a ride on the backs of the big ones. which would be fair game, except what they propose is not only impossibly to spin from a civil rights angle as they pretend, b
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so do you think "Influencers" are an expression of distinguished education, or are you just riding the moral high horse for fun? :O)
now seriously: any well educated person would have understood that i was referring to education promoting open mindedness, inquisitive curiosity and critical thinking. what you would expect in an ideal civilized citizen able to understand the challenges of our time, as opposed to a human drone with arbitrarily sophisticated instruction that would fall for most emotional or dial
It's a tactic to break up monopolies (Score:2)
Re:It's a tactic to break up monopolies (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't mind, if I follow someone, that's my decision. If anything, I should get the information that someone that I happen to follow on antisocial media A is also on B and whether I'd like to follow them. And then I, and only I, decide whether or not I want to do that.
Which is something these influenza already do anyway.
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Forget about the social media platforms for a moment, think about the person you want to follow. Ideally they would have some kind of token that you can use to subscribe to their posts. It doesn't matter what platform they make those posts on, what matters is that you see them because you have the token.
You have full control over whose posts you see. If Twitter bans an account and they move to Parler, it's seamless for you and the author of the posts.
Of course it won't happen because it makes it impossible
Re:It's a tactic to break up monopolies (Score:4, Insightful)
This is exaclty right. Social media would improve dramatically with competition and choice. No, you shouldn't be able to "take your contacts with you" without their consent. But media sites should be required to allow a "come with me" offer from one site to another. An offer to existing "friends" to be friends on a different site.
Re: It's a tactic to break up monopolies (Score:2)
Nobody has to force anybody onto anything to allow a transfer of existing relationships. You clearly either lack imagination or are just playing dumb. Even in simple terms, Linked In will scan your email address book and suggest connections where it finds a match. Nobody is forced to connect and nobody is forced to join. It just makes suggestions based on known data.
Now imagine a relationship management protocol which simply stores your relationships and allows those to be read by any third party, with your
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Ah, there it is, and, as I predicted in my earlier comment, not upmodded.
And yes, even though it is also intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.
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It's a bad tactic to break up monopolies. Are you really suggesting that the government mandate interoperability between social networks?
First - that'd make it virtually impossible to start a new social network, because
Second - there'd be no real difference between say, 8chan and Facebook. Orange men wlil just post it there and bring it back here. You thought content moderation was like playing whack-a-mole before, you ain't seen nothin' yet!
Third - once the government mandates interoperability, they'
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Nobody said anything about interoperabillity. In order to bust the monopolies built on exclusive access to "friends", the government should require that users of any socila media should be able to notify existing friends on a different social media that they have moved. So the interoperability would be limited to a onetime, one click function that says "alert friends to my new user name on media X with an invitation to become a "friend" there. That means that you would have a chance to move a group of fri
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Holy shit, I agree with you! Even if I wanted to follow someone from site A to site B, I don't want to trust site A to get their data about me right, and I'm not entirely sure what site B will do with the data they get from A. ON TOP OF WHICH, given my spam filters, I may well not even see anything from the new site unless I manually scan quarantine and whitelist them.
Oh, yeah, one other thing . . . does this mean that both A and B now own data about me? I know that at no point in time have I ever owned
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Then don't move to another social website. Or if you do, keep your old presence alive, tell your friends where to find you now.
I wasn't born until 1962. Were I to get a note that one of my friends has just moved to the XYZ social website, I might decide to follow them there or not - but I'd just as soon set that up myself instead of counting on my current social media site ABC to get it right.
"even uttering the name of a competitor" (Score:2)
keep your old presence alive, tell your friends where to find you now.
The featured article dismissed that route as impractical in that it limits the user's reach.
This is ridiculous (Score:2)
It's incredible how these people a) put so much value on social media interactions and b) think of followers as numbers.
If i follow someone on, say, Twitter, what the fuck makes you think i'd be interested in using TikTok?
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Fair, but that's their problem, not the end users'. Again, why should i change platforms to begin with?
Compare to the closure of Vine (Score:2)
Again, why should i change platforms to begin with?
Because the platform that you use has announced its end of service. The featured article describes what happened with the closure of Vine.
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Again, because this is apparently not clear enough - why would that mean that I, the user, should automatically shop for a new platform just to benefit some content creator?
Interesting how you chose a quote about Vine stars (!!!) which makes zero mentions about end users.
Followers are not "yours" (Score:5, Insightful)
I admit I don't have very much experience with "social networks", but this idea doesn't seem to respect the rights of "followers" to make their own choices.
Just because I clicked on you on one platform doesn't mean you have the right to copy my contact information to others you join.
Only I get to decide where I'm going to sign up.
Of course they're not yours (Score:2)
You are the Product.
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How would it even work? You might be able to take my username to another platform. And if you could, then surely it's not mine anymore. But okay, let's say it's with my consent. How am I to be authenticated from one platform to the other? You'd have to have cross authentication protocols across all services that would like nothing better than to kill each other.
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At least it's asking a version of the right question, though there isn't any mod point for that. Maybe "Interesting" should be annotated for "Interesting comment or question"? (But I already went off all meta on the moderation system...)
My suggested API-based answer is that you would take your personal data wherever you want, but the APIs would allow your friends' data to be accessed when using your favorite system from wherever they preferred to keep their personal data. The tricky part is with incompatibi
IndieAuth (Score:2)
How am I to be authenticated from one platform to the other?
You prove ownership of your personal domain name [indieweb.org] using IndieAuth protocol [wikipedia.org] on one website, and then you prove ownership of the same domain name on another website.
Forced Subscription (Score:2)
I disagree (Score:2)
It's brilliant. Seriously. Mandatory interoperability, like Net Neutrality but for social media, would mean real competition.
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No, it'd destroy competition. Look, just ask yourself - when has any government anywhere demonstrated an understanding of what the internet has become, let alone how to improve it?
Trust me, the instant the government makes rules, the big boys will start gaming the system. Anybody remember the idea of free public wifi? It was a great idea until the government got wind of it. Gee, I wonder why the government got rid of it?
Give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
It's important to note this question is not being asked by the rank-and-file.. it's being asked by the people trying to make money off the rank-and-file!
One of the linked items leads with this question: "Followers are a valuable currency. Who should own them?" But the tacit assumption here seems to be that the only two answers are "the platform itself" or "the person being followed".
I agree with what Mononymous said above - the followers belong to themselves. If you are an (ugh) "influencer", and you want me to follow you to a different platform... make that case to me. Don't assume you have a God-given right to shove crap in my face whenever you want and by whatever means you want.
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It's spelled "influenza".
These people are a disease, and even antibiotics doesn't help getting rid of it.
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"Who should own them?"
The white plantation owners, of course.
Who the hell seriously uses the word 'own' about people in 2022, and not in the context of winning a game by overwhelming skill?
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I have a Twitter account, in which I have never twitted.
I use that to follow NASA, JPL and a few others.
I also have a semi dormant FB account.
If NASA decides to migrate to FB (assuming they dont have a presence in FB), that does not give them the permission to automatically add me.
And if NASA decides to migrate to a platform where I did not sign up, it doesn't give them permission to create an account for me in this new platform and get me "started" without my permission either.
As far as I come concerned,
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You asked the right question, essentially, "which position benefits the rank and file users more?" I come to the opposite answer.
Vendor lock-in rarely benefits users. In this case, the creator proposal would allow rank and file users to switch social networks without having to rebuild their network from the ground up. It helps creators, but it also helps users.
I am more skeptical that it is feasible than that it would benefit users.
That would be illegal (Score:4, Interesting)
Using my personal data, if I were to be a "follower", for any commercial reason other than what I have explicitly agreed to is against the privacy laws in my country.
Your followers are not your data.
This is the most stupid thing I have heard all week.
Nonsense (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
For once... (Score:1)
It seems most posters are in agreement with me. This is quite a novel and an odd feeling, not totally disagreeable though.
Does this mean I am wrong? It happens so seldomly I have a hard time recognizing it.
What a truly dumb idea (Score:3)
People follow different people on different social networks for different purposes. I may follow my ex on Instagram but only because she's a photographer and the psychobi*** publishes amazing photos, I sure as heck don't want to talk to her on Facebook, or Twitter or ... well anywhere. Likewise I follow specific people on Twitter for the specific announcements they make *on that platform* and I sure as heck am not interested in their holiday photos on another.
Also the premise is stupid. Our contact information isn't held hostage anymore than you having a phone number is you being held hostage to someone who has no phone. People can contact you if they want. There's no hostages here.
Correction (Score:2)
Should Social Networks Let You Take Your Interest to Other Services?
FTFY. We all know the user is the product, but you should continue pretending.
Would you want this, as a creator or a user? (Score:2)
Think for a minute. Suppose a creator moves to another platform. Taking their followers along may sound good, but what happens when some of those followers aren't on that platform yet? If they move over later, does the platform re-check your list every time someone joins to see if they're a follower of yours on another platform, or is the connection lost if they didn't move over before you? And what happens if someone else happens to have a matching username already and one of your followers has to pick a d
Doesn't... doesn't.... (Score:1)
the fediverse already do this? I mean, come on. Do some fuckin' research before blatting out 3k words.
No (Score:2)
The followers themselves should have the say in this. Just because I like you on Youtube doesn't mean I care about your Instagram content - even if I'm an Instagram user. I follow/subscribe/etc a creator *ON A SPECIFIC PLATFORM*, not anywhere and everywhere they choose to release content.
One big social network? (Score:2)
I have demands also! (Score:2)
If you were worth following on one platform, then (Score:2)
Would be funny if that was the norm (Score:2)
for senators who switch flags.
I thought that (Score:1)
I thought that I would put my opinion the comments, but it turns out I don't care.