Thread by @tavernaut

So, first things first, I've been poking around Hive Social and on the surface (lack of desktop app notwithstanding) I like what I'm seeing.

When I dig a little deeper though, I'm starting to feel concerned, a thread:

(1/18)

After my first "oooh pretty" and "hey, my friends are here" reactions, I started researching the app because we've had a bunch of Twitter clones that weren't above board trying to capitalize on *gestures broadly over at the dumpster-fire that is Twitter*

(2/18)

So, that research led me to a couple of concerns that broadly fall into three topics:

- Who is Hive
- How is Hive funded
- What is up with Hive's Privacy policy?

Bear with me as I expand on those three questions.

(3/18)

First: who is Hive?

This was pretty hard; there's a bunch of companies that share the name, and Hive isn't entirely clear who they are on their website either, going by TheHive, Inc in their privacy policy and Hive Social Inc in their copyright statement

(4/18)

I was able to find their LinkedIn and a funding page, but it isn't really possible to get a good feel of their employee force or their funding situation (more on that later). I also wasn't able to dig up any kind of registration info on the company behind Hive

(5/18)

People are touting the fact that they have only 2 people working on the app as a good thing.

Looking at it from an IT perspective, though? Two employees are absolutely not enough to ensure a social media app with 600k+ users like this runs reliably and securely

(6/18)

Second: how is Hive funded?

Running an application like this, especially keeping it highly available through an onrush of new users is *expensive*.

Hive is ad-supported, using Google AdSense, which means Hive has little editorial control and less revenue per ad.

(7/18)

Expensive hosting vs not a lot of revenue means Hive is likely running a significant loss.

That money has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is usually investors, personal or venture capital. A WeFunder is going to raise funds for Hive, but that hasn't paid out yet

(8/18)

Hive has apparently had 600k users since 2021. That's a major operating expense they've been funding for at least a year.

That leaves me to ask where Hive is getting its funding from and what kind of interest its backers have in the platform.

(9/18)

Third: What's up with Hive's Privacy Policy and TOS (aka: boilerplate documents, regulatory concerns, and puritanical views oh my!).

This was actually the first bit of digging I did, but the previous two points felt important to mention

(10/18)

What jumped out at me is that Hive seems to be using boilerplate documents riddled with mistakes, referring to Terms of Use and a TOC that they don't have on their website, conflicting content policies, and guidelines referring to sections that don't exist

(11/18)

As someone who used to work for small businesses via an MSP, I know these kinds of mistakes are commonplace and understandable *for a small business*. Hive serves over 600k users (900k+ at last count).

They also serve users in the EU and they don't have a GDPR policy.

(12/18)

Not being GDPR compliant and serving EU customers means you're in for a Very Bad Time(tm) when the regulator gets wind of it.

This also makes me wonder how secure data handled by Hive actually is, especially given its two-developer team. Has Hive ever been audited?

(13/18)

Finally, there's a concern a friend caught:

Hive seems rather SW hostile, stating "we do not allow nudity on Hive" in their FAQ (but walking that back partly in their guidelines).

I haven't seen them address this when asked about it on Twitter

(14/18)

They also state "Offering sexual services" is prohibited on their service. This is vague to the point of uselessness, an argument could be made that even sharing your OF would be considered "Offering sexual services".

Are these policies required for Adsense support?

(15/18)

A late addition: handles are currently not unique on Hive. It's not clear whether this is a feature or a bug.

If it's a feature, that has worrying implications for impersonation. Alternatively, that has me worried about what other exploits could be hiding in their code

(16/18)

I don't want to ascribe malice, but I do want to warn the community: before you jump into someone else's service, do your due diligence.

Are you comfortable entrusting your (potential) livelihood to a company that seems underprepared to handle that responsibility?

(17/18)

I'm currently not certain where I stand on Hive, but I'll likely follow the community if push comes to shove.

Like Twitter is right now, it'll be where my friends are and it'll be where my audience is. But I can't say I don't have my misgivings about how it's being run

(18/18)

If @TheHIVE_Social wants to respond to alleviate some of the concerns, that would be wonderful. I do like a lot of what I've seen, and I would love for this to succeed.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TAV Talk, have a picture of the boys being cute for reading till the end.