A Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web – The Sharecropper’s Revolt

The Sharecroppers are Revolting!!

The ‘Social Web’ appear to be the sharecroppers who belong to Social Networks, like FaceBook.

In the latest thrilling episode of the internet’s version of We the People, comes the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web.

We publicly assert that all users of the social web are entitled to certain fundamental rights, specifically:

• Ownership of their own personal information, including:
  • their own profile data
  • the list of people they are connected to
  • the activity stream of content they create;
• Control of whether and how such personal information is shared with others; and
• Freedom to grant persistent access to their personal information to trusted external sites.

Sites supporting these rights shall:

• Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list, and the data that’s shared with them via the service, using a persistent URL or API token and open data formats;
• Allow their users to syndicate their own stream of activity outside the site;
• Allow their users to link from their profile pages to external identifiers in a public way; and
• Allow their users to discover who else they know is also on their site, using the same external identifiers made available for lookup within the service.

Noble Words,

Stirring Ideals,

Doomed to Failure.

Time for a Reality Check….

“Ownership of their own personal information”

You gave up Ownership as soon as you signed up. Or did you miss this part? From the FaceBook Terms and Conditions which is Publically Accessible

Registration Data; Account Security

In consideration of your use of the Site, you agree to (a) provide accurate, current and complete information about you as may be prompted by any registration forms on the Site (“Registration Data”); (b) maintain the security of your password and identification; (c) maintain and promptly update the Registration Data, and any other information you provide to Company, to keep it accurate, current and complete; and (d) be fully responsible for all use of your account and for any actions that take place using your account.

Proprietary Rights in Site Content; Limited License

All content on the Site and available through the Service, including but not limited to designs, text, graphics, pictures, video, information, applications, software, music, sound and other files, and their selection and arrangement (the “Site Content”), are the proprietary property of the Company, its users or its licensors with all rights reserved. No Site Content may be modified, copied, distributed, framed, reproduced, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted, transmitted, or sold in any form or by any means, in whole or in part, without the Company’s prior written permission, except that the foregoing does not apply to your own User Content (as defined below) that you legally post on the Site. Provided that you are eligible for use of the Site, you are granted a limited license to access and use the Site and the Site Content and to download or print a copy of any portion of the Site Content to which you have properly gained access solely for your personal, non-commercial use, provided that you keep all copyright or other proprietary notices intact. Except for your own User Content, you may not upload or republish Site Content on any Internet, Intranet or Extranet site or incorporate the information in any other database or compilation, and any other use of the Site Content is strictly prohibited. Such license is subject to these Terms of Use and does not include use of any data mining, robots or similar data gathering or extraction methods. Any use of the Site or the Site Content other than as specifically authorized herein, without the prior written permission of Company, is strictly prohibited and will terminate the license granted herein. Such unauthorized use may also violate applicable laws including without limitation copyright and trademark laws and applicable communications regulations and statutes. Unless explicitly stated herein, nothing in these Terms of Use shall be construed as conferring any license to intellectual property rights, whether by estoppel, implication or otherwise. This license is revocable at any time without notice and with or without cause.

Social Networks are virtual rooms filled with user generated content masquerading as a peoples place. They place ads around your stuff, and deliver eyeballs to advertisers in the electronic version of valpack coupons and junk mail. When you step back you may realize that your ‘network’ consists of folks who are clones of yourself, delivered to advertisers, whose sole purpose is to sell your stuff. It is an electronic roach motel. So boys and girls, you get to work for Facebook for nothing, getting all your equipment from Facebook, doing only those things the plantation owner allows, and at the end of the day, not even sharing in the wealth.

“Control of whether and how such personal information is shared with others; and Freedom to grant persistent access to their personal information to trusted external sites.”

I’ll Bet you Missed this Part too.

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

“Freedom to grant persistent access to their personal information to trusted external sites.”

Third Party Websites and Content

The Site contains (or you may be sent through the Site or the Service) links to other web sites (“Third Party Sites”) as well as articles, photographs, text, graphics, pictures, designs, music, sound, video, information, applications, software and other content or items belonging to or originating from third parties (the “Third Party Applications, Software or Content”). Such Third Party Sites and Third Party Applications, Software or Content are not investigated, monitored or checked for accuracy, appropriateness, or completeness by us, and we are not responsible for any Third Party Sites accessed through the Site or any Third Party Applications, Software or Content posted on, available through or installed from the Site, including without limitation the content, accuracy, offensiveness, opinions, reliability, privacy practices or other policies of or contained in the Third Party Sites or the Third Party Applications, Software or Content. Inclusion of, linking to or permitting the use or installation of any Third Party Site or any Third Party Applications, Software or Content does not imply approval or endorsement thereof by us. If you decide to leave the Site and access the Third Party Sites or to use or install any Third Party Applications, Software or Content, you do so at your own risk and you should be aware that our terms and policies no longer govern. You should review the applicable terms and policies, including privacy and data gathering practices, of any site to which you navigate from the Site or relating to any applications you use or install from the site.

Seriously, you do not have a snowballs chance in hell in getting any current social network to enable any of these rights. You are certainly welcome to build your own social network from these principles, and I applaud the effort except for

‘Freedom to grant persistent access to their personal information to trusted external sites’.(because this smells like the same bullshit that the current plantation owners are using to enable them to collect money by selling the members to advertisers with checkbooks, plus there are no trusted sites, that do not daisy chain the third party get out of liability card)

You figure out some other way to pay for it, you will have a winner.

Bonus Links:

Donna Bogatin – Plaxo, Marc Canter Ignore Rights of Stubborn Social Web Silent Majority