The concept of ethical social network

[Sam Tuke]

On Tuesday 06 September 2011 22:16:58 you wrote:
> Could you clarify that part?
> 
> And having the ability to be accessible independently of any other network
> or computer.
> 
> Why the accessibility from any network or computer is necessary to the
> ethical disposition of the social network?

Maybe this is stretching the meaning of "ethics" a little, but basically the 
user does not have real power and control over their participation in the 
social network if their participation in it relies on third parties. Being 
able to host their own account without reliance on any other server, 
individual or network is important because without this they are not really 
free to host themselves and express themselves.

If my social networking account could disappear from the larger social network 
because a computer acting as a relay in the network is required for 
communication, caching, or some other technical purpose, then my participation 
can be vetoed by a third party. So for real independence, real self-sufficient 
capability of freedom of expression etc. there can be no single point of 
failure between my home social networking server and the social network at 
large (in this example).

> How about adding that the user must be the legal owner of anything that
> they submit to the service. This may be assumed from your other
> requirements, but I think it should be explicit because historically users
> of some networks have not had the right of ownership over their social
> network content.
> 
> It's interesting what you said, but in which way this proposition is
> necessary to the ethical disposition of the social network?

Basically I see this as a technical requirement of the social networking 
software (the user will be adding content to a device which they own, we 
assume, so that issues of licensing should not necessarily apply). The 
technical issue that I'm raising is solved by your proposal:

> I proposed to add:the user should be free to decide what
> is the license of the communicated data.

> As the social network is peer to peer, there is no central company or
> organisation. So there's no need of legally binding statements concerning
> the privacy of communication exchanged by users. For example, if a user
> represents the organisation behind the software development, this one has
> by design no more access to any user data than anyone else.

That isn't sufficient protection however. Take Firefox - if Mozilla was a 
private company then they could use their enormous influence over Firefox 
development to change the way that Firefox collects data or allows the user to 
control privacy settings in order to send data to Mozilla servers, and only to 
Mozilla servers. Of course Mozilla is Free Software, so others would see this 
was happening (though Mozilla may implement this hypothetical code in a way 
that was very hard to detect) but Firefox is still the brand, the updates 
would go out automatically to hundreds of millions of users, and it would take 
years before a forked version of Firefox, with the tracking removed, would 
exceed Firefox in popularity. Additionally Mozilla controls the hosting of the 
code, of Firefox,com, and the servers with user accounts for forums and 
development etc., all of which involves private data that could be abused 
which is ancillary to the product of Firefox itself, but all of which is no 
doubt important to users of Firefox.

Fortunately Mozilla is a foundation and so this scenario is very unlikely to 
happen, but it goes to show that it is important 'the company behind' an 
ethical social network has legally binding pledges to a community about the 
way it will develop the code, and the goals of its activities that relate to 
the software. Just being Free Software is not enough - malicious parties can 
use influence to corrupt the ethical nature of software. Just look at the scare 
surrounding core internet security components of OpenBSD 
(http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/12/fbi-accused-of-planting-
backdoor-in-openbsd-ipsec-stack.ars).

I hope that was somehow useful.

Please can you check your email client configuration relating to line length, 
because your quoted replies come out garbled and hard to read on my mail 
client. Setting the max characters per line to approx 80 is a good idea for 
readability and compatibility. Otherwise your messages come out like this:

// >> The communication protocol and software of the social network must let
// the
// >> user be able to decide freely, clearly and efficiently what to do with
// each of his data and his account: the user may decide for each
// >> communication who are the recipients, even possibly the general public.
// Users must be warned constantly that once they publish their data, those
// >> may be known to the general public, including current or future
// employers
// >> and the government.
// >> Concerning the data hosted on other servers than the user's own, the
// delay
// >> to delete a post or to close an account must be quick once the user
// requests it. The closure or the deletion must be definitive, no data must
// >> be available to the social network once it is done.
// 
// 
// > How about adding that the user must be the legal owner of anything that
// they submit to the service. This may be assumed from your other
// requirements, but I think it should be explicit because historically users
// of some networks have not had the right of ownership over their social
// network content.

Thanks,

Sam.

-- 
Sam Tuke
British Team Coordinator
Free Software Foundation Europe
IM : samtuke at jabber.fsfe.org
Latest UK Free Software news: uk.fsfe.org
Is freedom important to you? Join the fellowship.fsfe.org
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 230 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/attachments/20110916/454c6b64/attachment.sig>