Liminal states

Social network sites epitomize the wave of the future, Obama’s strength in 2008, and youth.  They’re overwhelmingly in favor of civil liberties.  And civil liberties supporters are getting organized there.

— Social network activism and the future of civil liberties, originally published on Pam’s House Blend

At the annual privacy coalition meeting in Washington DC, Lillie Coney of EPIC asked me to be on a panel on “Cloud Computing and Social Networking” moderated by Rebecca MacKinnon.   Some of the topics she suggested I might want to cover include how the projects I’ve worked on have brought people together on social networks, and where users’ control of personal information did and didn’t matter.  Here’s a sketchy version of what I’m thinking of saying ….

1. social network activism is a powerful way to reach and engage people who care about  the issues but are currently not active supporters.  unique advantages include rapid information diffusion through trusted sources, public indications of strength, creating and strengthening bonds between participants, and media attention
2. people can participate publicly (changing status, posting links, joining groups, contacting politicians), secretly (forwarding information by private messages or in “friends-only” groups) or passively (consuming information).  for secret and passive participants, control of information and privacy is extremely important
3. the privacy and civil liberties community in the US has a huge opportunity to change the dynamics of the debate by devoting a lot more resources to social network activism

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Demand your dotRights

We are concerned that the Transition Tool and other changes actually discourage or eliminate some privacy protections that Facebook users currently employ. And we’re still waiting for Facebook to address the privacy issues concerning third party applications that were raised months ago in our petition.

— Nicole Ozer of dotRights, Facebook privacy is in transition — but where is it heading?

Facebook’s message when I logged in today talked about how they were giving me more control of my information and simplifying the privacy settings.  Uh-oh.  Valleywag thinks it smells like an anti-privacy plot, and PC World’s Tech Inciter suggests watchs out for the “Everyone” setting.  Comments on the Facebook governance page are even more critical.

And yeah, sure enough, if I click on “Save Settings” and accept Facebook’s defaults, my status updates, photos, list of family members, etc., become public.   For everyone on the internet to see.  Yikes.   And just in time for the holidays, too!

dotRights has the best privacy guide I’ve found so far. Please have a look at it, and share it with your friends — on Facebook and in email.

If you’d like to give Facebook feedback, please do, either directly on Facebook or by signing dotRights’ petition.  Twitter coming soon, hopefully 🙂

I’ve got a screenshot below, along with some thoughts about activism — and a comment about software engineering, if you’re into that kind of stuff.

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Draft! Work in progress!  Feedback welcome!

The open letter will be published Monday evening, and this will be one of many posts announcing it.

Final version intended for Pam’s House Blend

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I’ve been live-tweeting @asackofseattle’s “lessons learned” presentation from Northwest Entrepeneur Network’s Entrepeneur University.   Here they are in one easy-to-read list:

#10: it takes 5 years to create anything of value
#9: focus on your 1st market longer than you think
#8: beware of shiny object distraction
#7 avoid the rush to nowhere
#6 competition doesn’t kill (early-stage) companies; usually, it’s internal conflict — teams going in multiple directions #nwen
#5 the customer has the answer.  check out “outcome-driven innovation”
#4 Two #’s: Customer acquisition cost and lifetime value.  focus on ’em; track ’em
#3: GFA (Get F’in Aggressive) “over the last 15months, i don’t know what happened, but his eyes had changed”
#2: KISS
#1: the way you’re framing it from a capital and time perspective is too limited

Thoughts?

jon

Last year, I ended my post with “… what a difference a year makes.” Yeah, really.

One thing’s a constant, though: spending Halloween doing something wonderful with Deborah.  Yay!

Happy Halloween, all!

DRAFT Work in progress! Feedback welcome!

Final version intended for The Seminal and Pam’s House Blend

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Some screenshots from the #nem hashtag via Twazzup:

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Since it’s a poem about social media, my brother Greg has version 2.0 of “I’m Pretty Well connected” up on Gottabook and The Happy Accident:

I’m pretty well connected.
I’ve got my Facebook page.
I tweet, blog, plurk
From home and work.
I link, connect, engage!

I Stumble, and I Ustream.
My YouTube channel’s big….

Read on for more!

… keep your eyes open for a river, once you pass the river, the driveway will be the first right after the river. There is a Scarecrow on the mailbox at the edge of the driveway. Follow the driveway to your destiny 🙂

— from the direction to Goa Gil’s birthday party

Stop me if you’ve heard this one already: I’m in the midst of a social network activism campaign — and looking forward to a psytrance party.

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One of our goals for the 2010 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference is to reach out to a broader and more diverse community.  Our upcoming “save the date” announcement is the first good opportunity for this.  Getting some attention on Twitter, blogs, and email lists can help raise awareness of “the best computer conference you’ve never heard of”, as Elizabeth Weise so memorably described it a decade ago.   But why should people care?

The intro from the 2006 conference says it well:

Now, more than ever, the lines of technology, freedom, and privacy are colliding.  Governments continue their surveillance of citizens in the name of security, huge databases of information on every aspect of individuals’ lives are created, and debates are underway about controlling content.  Yet, while technology is at the epicenter of these profound developments, technology also has the potential to advance the civil society…. CFP will explore issues that impact us all, wherever we are, around the world.

Indeed.  And for the last two decades, the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference has been at the heart of this discussion, with a mix of technologists, lawyers, policy experts, academics, corporate executives, politicians, and activists.  This year, we’ll be having it in Silicon Valley for the first time ever (yes, really!), and so it’s a unique chance to engage deeply and reframe the discussions that too often treat privacy and online rights as an afterthought.

Or so it seems to me.  Then again, I’m a regular at the conference (1, 2), and spend a lot of my time hanging out with privacy and free speech advocates … so perhaps I’m not the best judge of what’s a good hook for everybody else.

So, it’d be great to hear some other perspectives.  Last year’s program gives an idea of the wide range of topics that are covered at a typical CFP, and Lorrie Cranor’s Ten Years of Computers, Freedom and Privacy (from 2000) gives some historical perspective; I’ve included last year’s suggested topics in the first comment.  Given all that …

Why do you care?

How would you convince others who aren’t “the usual suspects” that they should care?

jon

Update, September 1: Microsoft responded.  More here.

Draft!  Work in progress!  Feedback welcome!

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Draft!  Work in progress!  Feedback, please …

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