[governance] open standard for "facebook crowd" interactions

[parminder]

On Monday 16 May 2011 06:28 PM, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> McTim<dogwallah at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 7:45 PM, Norbert Bollow<nb at bollow.ch>  wrote:
>>
> Suppose someone invested a lot of effort into building something
> which meeting similar communication needs as FB, but with better
> privacy properties. Network effects would likely cause this new
> thing to be very unattractive to potential early adopters because
> "everyone is on Facebook" unless sufficiently rich APIs are
> available to effectively integrate the users of facebook.com
> with the users of the new site into a single social network.
>
> Even if we assume that suitable APIs for doing this exist *now*,
> in the absence of any effective governance mechanism that takes
> adequately into account also stakeholder interests which may
> conflict with those of Facebook Inc. and the perceived interest
> of the U.S. government, the company is not in any way obligated
> to play along -- and the risk that they possibly wouldn't is
> probably enough to prevent anyone from making the above-mentioned
Very much agree with Norbert's analysis.

There is this school of thought among many progressive techies which 
still holds that by practice alone (making better and more open 
alternatives) we can keep the Internet as we want it to be. It is time 
that we all recognised that this is not true. Neither markets, nor 
voluntary tech contributions, are enough. Public interest regulation is  
a must, and since the Internet is global, the legitimate processes and 
institutions for such regulation have to global - democratic in all ways 
- participatory, multistakeholder etc...

How this would be done is not an easy thing at all. But then we must at 
least begin to address the imperative. At least frame the 'problem' and 
start looking for the right way forward.

Parminder

> investment.
>
> Greetings,
> Norbert
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-- 

Parminder Jeet Singh
Executive Director
IT for Change
NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations ECOSOC
www.ITforChange.net <http://www.ITforChange.net/>
Tel:+91-80-2665 4134, 2653 6890. Fax:+91-80-4146 1055


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