[Freedombox-discuss] legal problem w/ Twitter (et al.)

[Thomas Lord]

This is a condensed reply to both Jonas and Lee.

I agree with Jonas that there is pretty much no stopping
simply forwarding updates from FB to Twit or FacB.  That
is not the problem.

If I publish on FacB or Twit -- or if I haven't yet
converted all my friends away from it -- I want to read
what other people post there, including what they say
in response to me.

One way to give users reasonable control over their 
logs on those services (which only solves one part of 
the privacy problem, sure) is if we can just download
everything the user can see (just keep syncing my 
"Wall" or my Twit stream onto my FB, and I'll read it
there and often reply via other channels).

It is *that* functionality that already leads to legal
problems in both services.

"Push and forget" - just forward items to FacB or Twit
and *never reading those services* is easy for free software
to do without legal problems.    Giving users alternative 
ways to read those services, though, requires using
the API -- and that's where you get into legal problems.



-t




On Sat, 2011-03-19 at 23:33 +0100, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 01:59:15PM -0700, Thomas Lord wrote:
> >In order to use the Twit API, a program must use an authentication key 
> >(called "consumer key and secret") assigned to the software program 
> >using the key.
> 
> I have setup my identi.ca account to mirror into my twitter account.
> 
> I have no authentication key.  Just use the abilities of those existing 
> services.
> 
> 
> >The FacB API also requires some sort of developer key.
> 
> I write (since shortly - took me ages to get started) blog entries and 
> have told my Facebook account to mirror them.
> 
> I have no authentication key.  Just use the abilities of that existing 
> service.
> 
> 
> What I do is treat Twitter and FreedomBox not as privacy zones of mine, 
> but instead treat them as data silos interesting in sucking public stuff 
> - so I let it suck some public stuff so that my poor friends locking 
> themselves up in those data silos get a few glimpses of my practicing 
> Free Speech.
> 
> For Facebook I found a blog aggregator app which sucks in only excerpts, 
> not the full blog entries, which encourages Facebook users stumbling 
> acrooss my posts via Facebook to get out into the larger internet to 
> read the full stories.
> 
> 
> 
> I want my FreedomBox to function as a blogging tool.  Both targeted 
> public and (in a later version when WebID gets sorted out and 
> integrated) various privacy spheres.
> 
> I do *not* want my FreedomBox to distort the perception of "privacy" by 
> leaking(!) anything targeted a private sphere onto Facebook as well.  
> Which means I see no reason for FreedomBox to provide any linkage to 
> Facebook, since Facebook already has a gazillion ways to suck in public 
> stuff all by itself - especially stuff served on a silver plate like RSS 
> and Atom data is.
> 
> 
> 
>   - Jonas
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Freedombox-discuss mailing list
> Freedombox-discuss at lists.alioth.debian.org
> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss