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The US president, who has not used email while in office, has one iPhone capable only of making calls and another that is used as his Twitter phone, with access to a series of news sites and the social network, according to White House officials talking to Politico.
While his call-capable iPhone is issued by White House staff and is swapped out “through routine support operations” to check for hacking and other security concerns, Trump has resisted attempts to do similar for as long as five months with his Twitter phone, saying it was “too inconvenient”.
A US president has the power to override White House policy and disregard advice, but given that the devices and systems they use are prime targets for foreign intelligence agencies, doing so can pose significant US national security risks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:28PM (5 children)
I don't really understand why no one has fixed Twitter and Facebook. There is no magic sauce that requires them to be centralised. In fact they are already decentralised (data centres on most continents). Why do all of the nearly-ran Google/Yahoo/Microsoft not get together and sort it out? Someone to lead them by the nose?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:23PM
Because as much as they want to take over the social network traffic from Facebook/Twitter, they then want to own it themselves. The last thing they want is a system they cannot control.
Case in point: The "hostile takeover" of Usenet by Google Groups.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:28PM (1 child)
Because centralized companies do centralized things. It's like asking why there are so many different Linux distros--because the people who work on them like to do their own thing.
What is the benefit for a large company to do a social product that is distributed over just keeping it centralized as usual? Show them the benefit and they'll do it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:31PM
Or similar to how there are so many streaming services lately. It would be great if Disney, NBC, CBS, etc., etc. could just play nicely and license their stuff to Netflix, but they all start their own $10/month streaming services because they want it all to be their money. Cooperating means they have to share the profits, and they think they can make more money by keeping their products to themselves.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by terrab0t on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:39PM (1 child)
I’ve heard of a few attempts to make open, decentralized social networks with the same features as Facebook, but none have taken off yet.
As for Twitter, Mastodon [mastodon.rocks] is gaining traction. You use it like Twitter, but—just like email—users are on various different Mastodon servers.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday May 24 2018, @08:38AM
> I’ve heard of a few attempts to make open, decentralized social networks with the same features as Facebook, but none have taken off yet.
Sure, needs some big name backers. At some point, Google, Microsoft et alia have to realise that their attempts at Hangouts, and whatever the microsoft equivalent thing is called (is windows live a thing?) are doomed to fail. At least if they gang up they stand a chance... and decentralised would be a very natural route to take in that instance.