Europe has a social media #infosec issue. Most social media are American, some Chinese, a few Russian. No European. They were taken over by Facebook on its rise.
Primary issue is their near monopoly power, but this event highlights that ownership is a risk as well.
Concentrated media ownership is nothing new. English language mass media has been dominated by the Murdoch family for decades. Media mogul Berlusconi is back in government in Italy. The US had Hearst.
Would seem media are natural monopolies that can be owned&taken. But are they?
To be clear, the solution wouldn't be EuroBook (or for that matter Afritter or AsiaTube). Nor as such initiatives like #Mastodon.
You can and should download your data from social networks, but it isn't in itself a solution either.
This is like solving the kidnapping of your family by having them all returned, in one box for their hands, one for their feet, one for their heads…
It isn't the tweets, posts, replies and comments that make social networks social, it is how they are put together live.
It is the networks that creates the #networkEffect, and subsequent lock-in. Default is to be assimilated, people, media, organisations and companies. The barriers to network competition overwhelming.
You own your own data is a good starting point. However you don't own your network, it is a collaborative effort.
If you join a chic new networks, your friends, acquaintances, customers don't have to follow, but they'll know where you are and stay in touch, if both of you want.
Networks will be required to maintain forwarding stubs to pass on messages between networks. You will have a personal shadow network of the company you keep.
Which takes us back to #infosec for a sec. We don't know the networks, their managers and present and future owners.
«Deyr fé,
deyja frændr,
deyr sjalfr it sama,
en orðstírr
deyr aldregi,
hveim er sér góðan getr.»
Bridges break,
sites die,
we ourselves do the same.
Still, @t shows the wider reaches and spans of open.
The unbroken bridge is #BridgyFed, connecting the two archipelagos of #IndieWeb and #Mastodon. (The htaccess line lets the bridge stand on your site.)
This is a good solution, far better than no solution, but still clunky and brittle long-term.
fed.brid.gy
Somewhat reminiscent of this.
@threadreaderapp unroll
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