
Thoughts on the Social Graph (2007) - luu
http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/
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grx
I see problems with

> A centralized "owner" of the social graph is bad for the Internet.

versus

> Establish a non-profit and open source software (with copyrights held by the
> non-profit) which collects, merges, and redistributes the graphs from all
> other social network sites into one global aggregated graph.

Yes, the author claims this is only at the beginning a centralized
institution,

> While the non-profit's servers and databases will initially be centralized,
> ensure that the design is such that others can run their own instances,
> sharing data with each other.

but in reality everybody who works with decentralized software like XMPP,
Mastodon, GNU Social, Diaspora and various "darknet" nodes knows how difficult
it is to get users to use the software/join the node.

In fact, I don't think a company like Facebook (10 years after this article
was published) will ever implement an external social graph that allows users
to pull data from their platform. Users should be more sensitive to the
features the products they use support. A platform that implements a protocol
like OStatus is a far superior product to invest in as a closed monopole.

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buro9
2007

Read it, thought I'd read it before, noticed the old social networks, halted
at FOAF... checked the date.

Still valid though.

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idlewords
Counterpoint:
[https://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither...](https://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither/)

~~~
jancsika
That counterpoint has a strong point here:

> You can either have a decentralized, communally owned social graph (like
> Fitzpatrick envisioned) or good privacy controls, but not the two together.

We already have a communally owned social graph in the form of publicly
viewable FLOSS mailing list archives. If the lack of good privacy controls
opens up the community to risks, then one should be able to assess the risks
by mining the data in those archives.

So has anyone ever written a paper about mining FLOSS mailing list archives
for fun/profit?

~~~
Chris2048
> You can either have a decentralized ... social graph ... or good privacy
> controls, but not [both]

Might homomorphic encryption change this?

~~~
jancsika
My point is that we don't have good privacy controls on FLOSS mailing lists
_now_ \-- in terms the social graph it represents, the metadata, and the
content. So the question is: what risks do FLOSS mailing list archives pose,
as measured by analyzing the publicly viewable data in those archives?

To answer your question: technically, yes. But I don't think it will
practically change things until we have clear, concrete ways to measure how
what we're already doing is bad.

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bullen
What happened to pingback... that was decentralized and focused on content
instead of the rather pointless "look at my dinner"-graph.

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dullgiulio
In reality today people don't really have to add their friends all over again.
The graph is imported by scanning e-mail and phone contacts.

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Gys
From 2007-08-17... That should be mentioned in the title.

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gingerbread-man
That explains this line: "MySpace also has a lot of good data, but not all of
it. Likewise LiveJournal, Digg, Twitter, Zooomr, Pownce, Friendster, Plaxo,
the list goes on."

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fs111
wow, only twitter is still relevant from that list

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vkazanov
LiveJournal is still quite alive in certain parts of the world... But yes, FB
ate 'em all.

