We messed up everything. And it’s great.

This could be the beginning of the end of social network as we know them.

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

In the recent months, some of the biggest social-media companies have begun searching for redemption. Facebook and Twitter, in particular, have promised various reforms. At the last F8 conference, Mark Zuckerberg announced that « the future is private ». Privacy will be the defining pillar of his social network’s sprawling empire going forward. But how can we trust Facebook after Cambridge Analytica and the security “vulnerability,” that led to hackers accessing the personal Facebook accounts of some 50 million users? How can we trust social networks that can lead a young teenage girl to commit suicide ? Or employees that abused data access to spy on users?

Do we have to break social networks?

Let’s make it clear. NO.

Do we have to re-think social networks?

YES. Definitely.

Freedom & privacy

Over the past 15 years, the Internet as we know it has changed rapidly. What was once a free and unfiltered space for people to share radical ideas has now become commoditized and controlled.

Controlled by giant platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

This situation lead to issues ranging from the threat of government-ordered censorship to more subtle, algorithmic biases in the curation of content users consume. Among those issues, one is on every lip at the moment: our data privacy.

The last decade has led Google, Facebook, and Twitter ask for information about us, for more personalization and comfort (facebook connect, Google Connect…). They managed to let us believe that Internet is a «safe space» and that ideas you don’t agree with are somehow a threat to your existence. They became the « judges » of their own empire and measure which speech is good or bad, censoring users with large followings simply for making a vocal minority feel uncomfortable. Thanks to all the data, their algorithms knows what is good or not for you.

For MIT Media Lab researchers Chelsea Barabas (@chels_bar), Neha Narula (@neha, Director of Digital Currency @medialab) and Ethan Zuckerman (@EthanZ, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT), in an article published by Wired, the web has moved from an open space for free expression to a closed community of corporate-owned private platforms.

Step by step, we are loosing our freedom. And our privacy.

Early web pioneers like Brewster Kahle have called for ways we might « lock the web open » to preserve the essence of the World Wide Web: freedom. The whole idea is to have a Web that is reliable, a Web that is private, while keeping the Web fun.

To preserve freedom, social networks should allow users to interact with each other regardless of the social network they are affiliate to. Facebook was thought of as a state. If you are taking part of « Facebook Land » you will only be exchanging with other people from this same « state ». Meaning you will only discuss with other Facebook user. Your freedom of speech ceases at the boundaries of Facebook.

We need more interactions, more connections between those social platforms to let users be really free. Imagine if cell phone carriers was just allowing you to exchange with your friends who are on the same network, wouldn’t be crazy?

Unfortunately, that’s what we are facing right now on the web.

We should build an infrastructure that will be more of a social network aggregator to let every single social network connect to it. And shape it as a Social Place where every user can exchange freely.

Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash

Freedom, privacy… and security

Freedom, security and privacy are interrelated. The link between these three concepts is more obvious in some cases than others, though. The strongest link is between privacy and security, since we often rely on security (encryption, locked doors) to protect our privacy.

Freedom and security have led to one of the most polarized debates of the 21st Century. Can we get back our freedom on the internet with a secure data privacy?

Yes.

We kind of cracked this equation with cryptocurrencies. That’s what decentralized social networks are all about. The principle of decentralized platforms, take the essence of P2P and the technologies that make most cryptocurrencies work, to create platforms that are not managed by a central player. There are no leaders, there is only aggregators that let users interact with any user they want to. This makes it more look like a co-construction social network rather than a giant self centred platform like Facebook.

Some solutions are already emerging, such as ActivityPub protocol.

ActivityPub is a standard for the Internet in the Social Web Networking Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It’s a decentralized social networking protocol based upon the [ActivityStreams] 2.0 data format. It provides a client/server API for creating, updating and deleting content, as well as a federated server-to-server API for delivering notifications and content.

By reading those lines you will end up by saying « Great, that’s a cool idea, that’s the solution » but unfortunately like some of the folks from MIT wrote down in a great Wired Opinion article, decentralized networks won’t work for several reasons.

Moreover, we need also to redefine what true « friendships » are on social platforms.

How can we end up with more than 500 friends on Facebook ? Are we really talking on a monthly basis to each one of them? Or even on a yearly basis? Are Facebook’s algorithm allowing us to see and share information through our feeds with them? NO.

As Robin Dunbar explains (an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist) with his « Dunbar’s number » theory, 150 is the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships. To make it simple, you can’t have more than 150 « real relationships » and we don’t even talk about « real friends » that knows you.

All of those issues and situations led me to this :

We messed up everything. And it’s great.

-Shameless plug-

It’s great because without all of this, I would never came up with Tood.

A responsible social network with a focus on data privacy. A social network that isn’t centred around ego and selfishness but more around sharing and altruism.

Get recommendations from your friends you know and trust, instead of relying on the opinions of strangers. That’s why you can’t have more than 150 friends on it 😉.

It’s from our mistakes that we draw our best lessons.

Meet my lesson. Meet Tood.

We are not live yet, but we will be really soon. Get your place in line to test our beta : www.tood.fr