Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:44AM (10 children)
We will not sell user data... We will not target ads... And when some users threshold is reached everything starts again. This happens all time.
For 10 GPP per month, or 80 per year, or maybe 90EUR per year, I would get a nice hosting and decide how and when to publish. In fact, my website hosting (an average, maybe not for a big business, but totally OK for hobbyist) with own domain is much cheaper. What was wrong with websites, again... Ah, yes, not much of capability to ddos attention, user just changed a site when it happened.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:07AM (9 children)
To be fair to this particular case, wikipedia never has done those things, in spite of being one of the oldest and most prominent "web 2.0"(remember when we called social media that?) sites, but then again it's also a socially controlled platform, where almost every level of control of it is open source or democratized somehow.
There's no reason to believe this new site will be like that.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:42AM
There's also no reason to believe that Jimmy Wales would create a site that has almost the exact opposite philosophy of his last one.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:29PM (4 children)
What did you think about the Fram incident?
Do you trust Jimmy Wales, really, to choose an admin team that is not comprimised?
If philip cross is still allowed to auto propaganda post, last I checked, that doesn't give me much faith.
You cannot be 'oh just a little' propaganda, or just these people are allowed to, propaganda, itself, is always dangerous and the enemy of the human intellectual effort.
You tell me a lot by how much bullshit you tolerate, and whose.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:34PM (3 children)
I was completely unaware of the incident in question, because I don't usually follow internet drama.
But upon reviewing it, what I find is an as transparent as possible documentation of a relatively lightweight ban with a open appeals process.
You get nothing like that on any of the main social media sites. Twitter will permaban you based on a totally unstated basis with no meaningful appeal options. So will facebook. You're at the mercy of underpaid staffers following a guidebook written without your input, if not a totally uncaring algorithm looking for fucking swear words.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday November 21 2019, @11:20AM (2 children)
That is a difference, he seems at least to be trying.
I am more concerned about phillip cross, everyone knows this is a state actor and nothing is done.
And then, yeah, long term, I am not sure anyone can deliver what he is promising.
Could it be that computers are actually a-social? That there is no real way to form human bonds?
That transitioning to internet society is just the end of society?
We are trying to replace the real thing with a fake, and will go to any lengths to believe lead can be turned to gold?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday November 21 2019, @06:47PM (1 child)
I mean yeah, that's all true. But it's also not the first time in human history the structure of social interaction has been turned completely upside down by technology.
Imagine being the first people to live in cities and build your entire survival off barter and trade, while living immediately next to people you're not related to.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday November 22 2019, @02:28PM
Hmmm there seem to be some patterns that track even way back, cities don't work without trust any more than a software platform.
A car based system does not work without trust either, everyone 'trusts' that no one slashes tires or scratches their lambo. Or that no government agency remotely destroys their car computer because they don't like your politics, but this happened to me in the united states.
I saw this issue headed our way when I graduated in 2000, I wrote a book about it, for like 3 years I was obsessed with warning people that without some other basis of trust than the corporation or government, we were just building a prison. I have buy in to working on this problem, and a written record of being predictive on the subject.
For my own sanity I had to stop talking about it though until recently, but it sure is odd for me to hear this conversation now and all of the people who overlooked these obvious foundational design flaws back then are wringing their hands, whining how did we get here.
You cannot get out of a problem the say way you got in, and when you find yourself in a hole and want to get out, first you have to stop digging.
And they are not quite there yet, so down we go.
They are the ones who got rich so they should solve it, but Mr. Wales no matter how good of an attempt it is, appears to me to be using the same tools that got us here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:28PM
Generally I don't have positive experiences using Wikipedia. Although technical/engineering articles, especially in English and Russian versions, are relatively good and allow to obtain more knowledge with a nice bibliography, other parts are just trending as all other Internet services: They want to be "for everyone". Let's temporarily put away is it feasible for encyclopedia or not. The problem is that instead of slowly building all "dependencies" to be accessible and understood by everyone (which was common in e.g. these old FAQs) it becomes just simplified over all limits. This way, social-related articles are just repeating stereotypes, many times wrong and insulting, but well-highlighted in media and giving profits to advertisers. But the worst thing is with history-related - these are just copying the same disinformation parts, amplifying it by next citations. And although this can be minimized by citation of other sources, it cannot be done in Wikipedia - as credibility is measured in these cases in depth of citations. This measure is totally wrong with history. OK, in engineering it works, but in history it amplifies errors.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Wednesday November 20 2019, @07:01PM (1 child)
Maybe it's a bad example, but Walmart was actually really nice when Sam Walton ran it. He was a down to earth, nice guy. I trusted them back then. Today, it's a very different place. I doubt they deleted any data collected from back then.
The point is, all things eventually change for the worse. Some things age better than others, but nothing ages gracefully. Almost everything ends in an awful way.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Thursday November 21 2019, @01:58AM
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/orthodoxy.x.html [ccel.org]
"We have remarked that one reason offered for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow better. But the only real reason for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow worse. The corruption in things is not only the best argument for being progressive; it is also the only argument against being conservative. The conservative theory would really be quite sweeping and unanswerable if it were not for this one fact. But all conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post. But this which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow old. It is the custom in passing romance and journalism to talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact, men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies; under tyrannies that had been public liberties hardly twenty years before. Thus England went mad with joy over the patriotic monarchy of Elizabeth; and then (almost immediately afterwards) went mad with rage in the trap of the tyranny of Charles the First. So, again, in France the monarchy became intolerable, not just after it had been tolerated, but just after it had been adored. The son of Louis the well-beloved was Louis the guillotined. So in the same way in England in the nineteenth century the Radical manufacturer was entirely trusted as a mere tribune of the people, until suddenly we heard the cry of the Socialist that he was a tyrant eating the people like bread. So again, we have almost up to the last instant trusted the newspapers as organs of public opinion. Just recently some of us have seen (not slowly, but with a start) that they are obviously nothing of the kind. They are, by the nature of the case, the hobbies of a few rich men. We have not any need to rebel against antiquity; we have to rebel against novelty. It is the new rulers, the capitalist or the editor, who really hold up the modern world. There is no fear that a modern king will attempt to override the constitution; it is more likely that he will ignore the constitution and work behind its back; he will take no advantage of his kingly power; it is more likely that he will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the fact that he is free from criticism and publicity. For the king is the most private person of our time. It will not be necessary for any one to fight again against the proposal of a censorship of the press. We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.
This startling swiftness with which popular systems turn oppressive is the third fact for which we shall ask our perfect theory of progress to allow. It must always be on the look out for every privilege being abused, for every working right becoming a wrong. In this matter I am entirely on the side of the revolutionists. They are really right to be always suspecting human institutions; they are right not to put their trust in princes nor in any child of man. The chieftain chosen to be the friend of the people becomes the enemy of the people; the newspaper started to tell the truth now exists to prevent the truth being told. Here, I say, I felt that I was really at last on the side of the revolutionary. And then I caught my breath again: for I remembered that I was once again on the side of the orthodox."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:49AM
"We will never sell your data."
Not that I've read into the terms, but what to stop them giving it away and still legally meeting that statement?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:09AM (8 children)
I googled wt:social to get the actual address. https://wt.social/onboarding [wt.social] I arrived at a sign up page, and filled in the required info - name, age, email address - and was redirected to the onboarding page. Check my email, and there's a confirmation email that I have to respond to if I want the account to work. Back at the onboarding page, I'm joined the "Ranked Choice Voting" group.
So, it doesn't appear that there is any waiting period. Or, if there really is a waiting period, they've waived that due to my superior intellect and good looks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:14AM (6 children)
My error, I spoke too soon. When I actually click the link to see the group I've just joined, I'm redirected to the page that tells me I'm on a waiting list.
Invitations? I get three links to invite work colleagues, family, and friends. Anybody want to try a link? https://wt.social/gi/some-guy4/friends/ph97 [wt.social]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:59AM (4 children)
Jeez, my tolerance and all that, but why would I want to get social with a self-declared asocial asshole [soylentnews.org] who hypocritically rushes to open an account on a new social media site? (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:02AM (1 child)
Maybe you're a masochist?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:15AM
I'm not. But I'd like to meet some new ones.
See, I ran out of them lately, still have room in my backyard
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:53PM (1 child)
I asked if anybody wanted to try a link. I didn't ask if somebody wanted to try a link. (too lazy to find the 'raspberries' emo)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @10:29PM
Yeah, thanks for taking me as a 'somebody' not just an 'anybody'.
It gets to show that senile people may have moment of lucidity in which they recognize as true what the whole world already has known as such for quite a time.(very large grin - FYI, the weather is even hotter today [soylentnews.org])
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:43AM
So... does that mean you have inferior intellect and bad looks?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Thursday November 21 2019, @04:34AM
I misread the URL as "socialboarding" which seemed ominous.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:14AM (3 children)
You only have to look at the antisocial turf wars of Wikipedia to know this won't end well.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:23AM (2 children)
Yeah, their gimmick of professionalism went down the shitter years ago with their pink-haired lesbian Jews turning the place into Snopes-tier editorializing and non-stop Trump bashing. What are they advertising anyway, a more biased team of curators and a more efficient memory-hole than Facebook or Twitter?
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:02AM
Meh, given the above recommendation and its author, may be wt.social is going to have a future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:16AM
"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"
Wikipedia is far from perfect, but next to FaceBook, they're angels.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:22AM
I thought SN don't show no ads.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:32AM (10 children)
Why should I pay you $100 per year so you can track me and advertise to me? I'm going to stick to Facebook... it's free as in free beer, and free as in free love.
(Score: 4, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:41AM (8 children)
TANSTAAFL
The only reason the love appears to be free, is Facebook hasn't figured out how to impregnate you. So, lie back, and enjoy the fucking!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:12AM (7 children)
Not gonna lie to ya, that's the best parapraxis of this year's end. Runaway, the guy for whom fucking is lying back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:19AM (6 children)
Das sexis! Women can do the fucking too. See: here [lmgtfy.com] or watch Deadpool [youtube.com] for further reference.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:26AM (5 children)
Nothing sexis when it comes to Runaway, tho. He's past that age, all he can do is lying about.
A few more years and he'll even lose his memories about sex. (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:25AM (4 children)
Better to lose memories than mammaries I spose. Apparently the little blue pill has completely grossed out every retirement home worker since the 90s.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:45AM (2 children)
Those workers, they better stop taking the blue pill, yea?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Wednesday November 20 2019, @11:58AM (1 child)
Yeah, but if you take the redpill you end up an incel.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:46PM
You got that backwards. Incels are damned near exclusively Betas and most of them wouldn't take a red pill if you told them it would get them laid three times a day for life, add sixty years to their life, add six inches to their schlong, and cure world hunger. See, even SJW chicks don't get turned on by Betas; they'll throw politics right out the window and fuck a straight up red-pilled Alpha before they fuck a Beta.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:40PM
But it prevents them from rolling out of bed at night.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 21 2019, @04:36AM
"I'm going to stick to Facebook... it's free as in free beer, and free as in free love."
....and free as in herpes.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:09AM
I read the word "rival" as "revival" somehow at first and found myself thinking, has facebook died? Then I read it properly and the surge of joy I felt left me.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:12AM (4 children)
So when they get a thousand times as many users they'll be able to say they're a very minor also-ran in the social media game.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:23AM (3 children)
What's with you and your obsession on the size of things? Is it because Soylentnews never grew the size of slashdot, or what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:25AM
I blame Sir Mix-a-Lot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:00PM (1 child)
You seem to have quite the burr under your saddle this morning jumping on everyone.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @09:38PM
Can't be helped with the hot weather spell around my neck of the woods.
Besides, not my fault they exposed themselves to my cranky disposition. (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by KilroySmith on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:23AM (7 children)
For $100 / year, I can subscribe to PornHub premium. They at least have significant expenses - not just hosting and data, but paying for content.
What expenses does a social network have? And how could they approach the bandwidth and content costs of a porn site?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:33AM (3 children)
Well, publicly signalling on social media that you value your privacy is included in that price. (grin)
Try doing that with your pornhub account and come back to tell us your experience. (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:26AM (1 child)
You got social in my privacy!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @09:46PM
Nah, mate, that's what Runaway was trying to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Thursday November 21 2019, @12:41AM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:39AM (1 child)
Hiring data mining engineers and marketing psychologists isn't cheap you know...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Thursday November 21 2019, @12:36AM
What I could go for is a revival of Usenet Newsgroups. No emojis, no text messages converted to images, and both moderated and unmoderated groups. No binaries, to reduce bandwidth requirements. No gimmicks like "likes".
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:28AM
Plus you get to see videos of people having sex instead of retarded memes and people who feel the need to post images of the text of their messages instead of just the text.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @08:17AM
for 10quids a month i'd rather lease a vps and host a personal page plus all kinds of stuff.
(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.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by szopin on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:10PM
Imagine the 3 revert rule in action when all members are wiki mods material, this will be amazing