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.