[OEMad] Open vs. Facebook

[Pete Prodoehl]

Here's something I've been thinking about...

I keep reading reports that Facebook has "gone to Hell" as they keep
changing their data privacy policies, making things more "open" outside
the walled garden.

But then I think of the advocates of open (like OEMad people) and wonder
if "the fans of open" have an issue with this opening up of Facebook. If
it's really just a matter of being more open and having data
available to more people, and allowing data to travel outside the walled
garden, do you have an issue with it?


Pete

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[Andrew Shell]

I think people are upset because they are making public peoples data
which was previously private. But their platform itself isn't really
becoming more open. I haven't done any development for Facebook so I
don't actually know what data is available or not, but I doubt it's as
open as it could be. A truly open system would be where you could
host your facebook profile on your own server ala WordPress.
Obviously that raises other technical issues, but that would be the
ultimate "open" platform.

Andrew

[Douglas Whitfield]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 1:37 PM, Andrew Shell <and...@andrewshell.org> wrote:

I think people are upset because they are making public peoples data
which was previously private.

I think this is the problem. Plus, part of openness is choice.  Even that scary, viral GPL allows you to keep changes private, as long as you don't release binaries publicly.

I also think there is a big difference between having an open organization - government, companies, software projects, NGOs, etc - and having a public social life.  There are some pushes to get data out there, but I don't know how useful facebook data is for doing epidemiological, immunological or any other sort of research that might truly make the world a better place.  Facebook data is interesting for doing social networking research and private profiles are a part of that research...not that social networking info can't make the world a better place, but throwing everything out there doesn't give any insight into the type of privacy people want, which would be useful for people like many of us creating websites.

Some personal data could definitely lead to better medical research.  There's a push to get people to post their DNA sequences publicly so trends can be found and the genome can be better understood.  Obviously, there are serious privacy concerns with that, but while I think people should be able to not publish that data, I do see the reason for the push.  I just don't ever see there being a push to see who has half-naked, drunken pictures of themselves on facebook from anyone serious about open data/open information.