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Jimmy Wales says his new social network, WT:Social, now has more than 160,000 members.
The platform says it will never sell user data and relies on "the generosity of individual donors" rather than ads.
Those who do sign up are added to a waiting list and asked to invite others, or choose a subscription payment.
It is positioning itself as a "news focused" place, and says members will be able to edit "misleading" headlines.
They will see the articles shared by their network in a timeline format, appearing with the newest first rather than algorithmically to try to appeal to their interests.
The subscription is £10 per month or £80 per year in the UK (€12 / €90 in Europe, $13 / $100 in the US).
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50460243
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:53PM (3 children)
The data can not be secured.
Here is the equation.
Cost $ of protecting social media data over time, t
$ = xt (grows, or maybe remains constant, or maybe exponentially grows, it's a true unknown variable, could even go to 0 in the walking dead scenario)
Usefulness U of social media data over time t. This is a seemingly hard law, human sentimentality is limited, and we know how important our 10 year old facgag data is to us, almost nothing, just a curiosity.
U = x/t (shrinks)
Value $ of dollars to hackers as social platform grows in users, u, over time, t.
$ = ut (grows exponentially, in every case)
These relationships lock into a place certain inevitabilities that affect all of us, the entire 'social media' concept. Neither Jimmy Wales nor anyone else can just say 'Im rich and famous, I have a reputation, I will fix this in *my* social network, I promise.' It is like promising you are going to travel faster than light speed, or pull yourself up by your bootstraps. What he is saying is, 'I will be your public interest technologist, because I am powerful and rich enough to overcome every cracking attempt for the rest of time.' Pretty astounding arrogance actually.
How many dollars is Jimmy Wale's successor(if we are so gutsy to plan on our species being alive) going to have for protecting 2020's social media data in 2040? How important is that going to be to him? Who is paying money for the protection of their data? Are they promising in writing to never miss a patch on any of their software stack? Are they going to make a payout if the data is lost? (hint: nope)
Apply these mathematical facts of our society and species to this question of 'privacy of social media data' and you can extrapolate that it is silly to consider any 'social media' interactions as private whatsoever.
And anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something, as in this case. Which is odd though, because he is already rich, and if this is the best solution he has, wow, he should visit my webpage. Can someone pass that on to him? I have some ideas that are better than his. Mastadon and gnusocial are better ideas than this, it is not hard.
Where this gets to be a real issue, for me, is when we talk about children. They do not have a choice, they cannot be informed on the ramifications of their data being leaked. They can not easily be educated about the dangers of APTs, their future long form applications, and their level of intelligence is of extreme interest to miltary planners and hedge fund managers, and the rich in general, all over the world.
If someone is born with a 250 iq, they need to know immediately. If someone is born with a 160 iq, then they risk being tracked for life due to their capacity to disrupt predictive models. Knowing people's childhood friends is one way to pretext them for social engineering. Breaking social bonds is one way for foreign countries to prepare an invasion.
Idk just rambling in the public interest, trying to warn everyone every day the internet is a prison that abuses the rights and minds of children, and undermines the entire concept of civilian government, but why bother if I'm not getting paid right?
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:06PM (1 child)
FTFY. Security costs do not go up linearly. And we already have established what the value to Google is - $100 per user per year.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:07PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Thursday November 21 2019, @12:27AM
I did end up for several months exchanging messages with a friend from elementary/high school last year, and it left me disappointed with how things had turned out for them (alcohol and drug addiction rules their life). It's true, you can never go back. People change, you change, and old data just doesn't have much relevance or value in a changing world.
It was a bit of a relief to lose their phone number when I dropped my phone in a bucket of bleach. Sad to say , but you'll find yourself having not much in common with old acquaintances.
Not to mention a couple I would want a restraining order against if they popped back into my life. Sometimes you are better off starting over fresh.
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