Plutonian Striptease is a series of interviews with experts, owners, users, fans and haters of social media, to map the different views on this topic, outside the existing discussions surrounding privacy.
Dmytri Kleiner is a USSR-born, Canadian software developer and cultural producer. He is a co-founder of Telekommunisten, a worker’s collective that provides telephone and Internet services, and an independent researcher investigating the role of telecommunications, cultural production and migration in class conflict.
Social networks are often in the news, why do you think this is?
Several reasons, on one hand social platforms like Facebook have gotten many new users into online communications, on the other hand, unlike older platforms like email and usenet, Social networks are run by capital financed companies, and thus have PR and marketing budgets.
In what way do they differ from older forms of communication on the Internet?
The primary difference is that they are centralized, proprietary platforms, each controlled by a single commercial organization.
Perhaps the slides from my rectent talk may be helpful: http://docs.telekommunisten.org/paraflows
The difference that is significant to me is that decentralized common platforms are not controlled by any single entity. For instance no one owns email, you can send email to me even when we have different email providers, if I change email providers, I can still send you email from my new provider. However, I can only send you a message on Facebook by way of an account provided by Facebook.
The classic Internet communications platforms, Email, Usenet, IRC, Finger, etc, where all based upon decentralized systems interoperating based on standard protocols, the new social platforms are not like that, they are centrally controlled, proprietary systems.
Who is ultimately responsible for what happens to the data you upload to social networks?
Not sure what is being asked here. The law would make both user and platform operator responsible.
Do you read Terms of Use or EULA’s and keep up to date about changes applied to them?
Somewhat.
Do you think you’ve got a realistic idea about the quantity of information that is out there about you?
Yes.
How do you value your private information now? Do you think anything can happen that will make you value it differently in the future?
I don’t worry about my private data, but believe in the right to.
How do you feel about trading your personal information for online services?
That is not my primary concern, rather I’m more concerned with economic models that require centralization and control of services.
To me the core of the problem is that these platforms are created with finance capital, and thus are financed in order to capture profit, thus profit-capturing must be engineered into the system, if a system can not capture profit, it will not be funded. Thus features like exchanging services for personal information become a possible business model for getting online ventures funded. The only way around this is to create other means of financing the development of communication technologies. Ways that do not require future profit, decentralized systems do not need to earn profit, because they have no expensive central infrastructure, they do, however, have development costs, and that is the problem, how to fund these costs without venture capital.
What do you think the information gathered is used for?
Ultimately it is sold to those that want to control the behaviour of people, i.e. advertisers, lobbyists, etc.
Have you ever been in a situation where sharing information online made you uncomfortable? If so, can you describe the situation?
No.
What is the worst case scenario, and what impact would that have on an individual?
Identify theft, prosecution, relationship crisis, etc.
Nowadays, most of the “reading” of what is written online is done by machines. Does this impact your idea of what is anonymity and privacy?
Not sure of what is being asked here again. The impact that it makes is that this machine readable information can be processed more systematically.
Can a game raise issues such as online privacy? And if so, what would you like to see in such a game?
Sure it can. I would like to see the game help the players understand the competing interests involved, and why their interests are often contradictory. i.e. the contradictory interests between the investors and the users, developers, etc.
Tags: decentralized systems, EULA, Facebook, identity theft, marketing, privacy, proprietary systems, social networks, venture capital
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