[RedneckBob]

Someone needs to create a new social network that will import the data blob that Facebook creates when users request all their data.

In fact, this new social network will automatically request all your data, download it, and import it for you if you enter your Facebook credentials.

Double fact, this new social network runs on top of a blockchain and you keep the keys and from this point forward, you control access to your data and all future data added to the site.

If you control the keys, its your data. If you don't control the keys, its not your data.

[saagarjha]

Why does this need a blockchain in it? It seems to me that you are adding steps that amount to “keep your data safe and nobody can have it”.

[laurex]

Why do you want a 'new social network'? As in a place where you're primarily signaling to strangers or acquaintances, as opposed to, say, just a way to have actual relationships with people who you actually want to have a relationship (plus events, of course)? It feels like what's missing from Facebook isn't simply data privacy, it's a fundamental premise about relationships and discourse, but I'm curious if I'm missing something.

[davidivadavid]

What would you call that "way to have actual relationships, etc."? It's a social network. Just one of a different kind.

I think Facebook understands that very well, or at least Zuckerberg does, and that's why they're taking that turn towards community, reflected in their new mission statement and new initiatives.

People don't give Facebook enough credit sometimes, and I'm saying that as someone who almost never uses their services. They know what an ideal social network would be. Now it remains to be seen if they can pivot the current behemoth into that ideal in a viable, profitable way. Short of that, they'll probably get "disrupted" sooner than later.

[SketchySeaBeast]

So now you have your password locked in an ultra secure safe, as well as tattooed on your forehead?

[shrimp_emoji]

Why tattooed on your forehead?

My turn for blockchain confusion: wouldn't that make it impossible for you to remove your data from the network? Although I suppose it'd all be hashed for the blocks. And then you'd overwrite it with nothingness. And the nothingness would be hashed. Then okay. But. Is the integrity provided by blockchain worth the overhead of the blockchain (which gets bigger and bigger and bigger)?

Looking at what seems like the other extreme, my favorite model of social media has been 4chan. So simple. So pure. So free. From a privacy standpoint, it's vastly superior to Facebook or Twitter. No accounts. (Well, traditionally.) Everyone automatically anonymous. You're your ideas in the moment, not an accountable, traceable, and politicized entity. You aggregate around common interests and talk. No karma-farming. No idea-shaming downvoting; the only thing that can diminish what someone said is someone else saying something in return or a mod banning. And, to minimize overhead and increase privacy further (although archiving bots diminish this), all threads are temporary. Everything I love about it stems from these features (it sure isn't most of the people on it), and everything I dislike about other social media sites stems from their features contrary to those.

[illvm]

The way blockchain is currently implemented, a distributed ledger for currency necessitates having a chain that grows bigger and bigger. But one could have a distributed ledger which doesn't keep a record since the beginning of time. The ledger could only be valid for, let's say a week, and everything before then is just lopped off. It would still be large, but it wouldn't be gigantic.

[wraithy]

If it's a public blockchain, there's no guarantee that any individual actor isn't just keeping the older data. Same story for a private blockchain.

There might be ways to "remove" data like your parent comment mentioned, but they would probably require making the sharing process a lot more convoluted.

[SketchySeaBeast]

> Why tattooed on your forehead?

It's still on Facebook - any privacy concerns being assuaged by throwing it in the safe would be useless.

> Looking at what seems like the other extreme, my favorite model of social media has been 4chan. So simple. So pure. So free. From a privacy standpoint, it's vastly superior to Facebook or Twitter.

That really depends on your goal with your social media account - if you have no desire to be identifiable or make connections, that works, but if you're trying to build a social circle that doesn't work at all. Really, it's all about goals, and why you're online.

[shrimp_emoji]

>if you have no desire to be identifiable or make connections, that works, but if you're trying to build a social circle

That's true. I don't really use most social media sites (or... really, anything) for that.

Actually, though, it seems easier for me to do that on 4chan than, say, on HN. Think about it: we talk, we like each other (???), and we decide to form a more durable connection -- let's add each other on Discord. On 4chan, it would be Anonymous revealing their Discord handle to Anonymous. On HN, it would be shrimp_emoji revealing their Discord handle to SketchySeaBeast. I've just doxxed my Discord self to the entirety of HN, and I've also given my new friend, SketchySeaBeast, a window into of all of my historic opinions that I've posted on HN, which are neatly catalogued in my profile. Terrifying. (Although this is a non-problem if A.) either 4chan or HN allowed DMing or if B.) I used an intermediate, anonymous Discord account as a proxy to my real one, and the ease with which you can register such an account is a credit to Discord.)

Unless you mean, in the Facebook-cultural sense: I have this profile full of my posts and meal pictures, and a friend of a friend sees it and decides that they really like my posts and meal pictures and friend me and thus my network has been expanded. I find that kind of... passive, advertising-based connection-making repulsive and weird, so I didn't even consider that.

[amelius]

No, the data should be continuously mirrored to the alternative network for a while. Without this mirroring, there will be no incentive for users to make the switch.

[mlb_hn]

Uh, isn't the ability to export your data what got Facebook into the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal in the first place?

[RandallBrown]

Not that I know of?

Cambridge Analytica created a quiz that users could take. That quiz asked for permissions from facebook like posting to your feed and seeing your friends list. The problem was that people 1) Don't pay attention to the permissions and 2) the friends list permission gave a LOT of information about your friends.

So if I gave the quiz permission, it also got lots of information from my 600 friends that might not want to give Cambridge Analytica that information.

[mlb_hn]

The full friend data is the only substantial difference I'm seeing between the two (which is quite substantial). The current Facebook API doesn't allow an app to even see friend names unless the friends also authenticate the app.

Basically, with the CA quiz Facebook allowed you to export your data to another site or app so you wouldn't need to put it into that site as you're saying. If you were to instead just upload the entire Facebook archive that seems like you're opening up even more data about yourself to potential abusers as well as some friends data that's in there (I think at least name and phone number?).

[basch]

>quiz asked for permissions from facebook

the quiz asked the USER for permission. I know you already understand that, but its important not to muddle responsibility.