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Facebook's 'Closed Silos' Pose Challenges To Open Web
An anonymous reader writes: The growing trend of closed content silos -- publishing platforms that require a login in order to view the content is a step away from a more open web. Back in December of last year, Facebook launched its own in-app browser, which is basically a web-view that loads links you tap on using the Facebook app. Although in-app browsers may be convenient for some, such features are primarily designed to keep users inside of the application for a longer duration, which translates to more advertising exposure (and, thus, more money). This kind of feature can be challenging to the goal of keeping the web open, not only because the feature overrides the end user's default mobile browser, but also because it keeps users in a closed ecosystem (versus exploring the web). Additionally, the Instant Articles feature doubles down on siloed content by working with publishers to make articles available nearly instantly within the app, loading much faster than they would through a mobile browser. This sounds good, and it is convenient. But it also sets up a path for monetizing content that would otherwise be viewable outside of the closed silo, and, because you're using the app to browse the web inside this silo, there are privacy concerns. Unlike using a browser such as Firefox or Chrome, which has a private browsing option, a user of Facebook's in-app browser does not have the same privacy control. It's no secret that Facebook has been trying to create what appears to be a closed version of the internet. The social juggernaut's Free Basics initiative, for instance, offers users with free access to select websites. Facebook gets to be the gatekeeper of the platform. This is something that didn't sit well with some privacy advocates in India, who played an instrumental role in banning Facebook's initiative in the country. Facebook is not just a social networking website where people go to talk with their friends and family, Facebook has become a mammoth platform that offers the ability to upload videos (mimic YouTube), and send money to your friends (mimic PayPal) among other things. It is almost scary to see the rate at which Facebook is expanding and trying to absorb everything that comes in its way.
And sit back. Enjoy the show!
Remember what happened when that one guy asked to see what they had on him?
They have a scary amount of information on you. And they want more.
Is that there is always some powerful company/being at the top, trying to control it all for himself. We had IBM, Microsoft, now Google and FB trying to be your one-stop shop for all things tech
The "too big to fail" stuff isn't just for banks anymore, I guess. But this didn't work out too well for AOL, in the end - people wised up. Maybe as society starts to care about privacy and security, they'll wise up about facebook too?
...when you install systemd.
...of 'Duh' magazine.
Was this news to anyone? My tech illiterate wife knows this.
If they haven't already, Facebook will start advising folks "The real web is scary for you and all our precious snowflakes! Stay here, behind the razor wire, where you're safe! Now; let's shop for a new car!!"
The modern app appers at Appbook know that only apps can app apps, which is why the Appbook app app lets you app apps while apping other apps!
Apps!
Better the peasants wait another few years for access to the Internet than never get it because a few corporations have taken control of how it is accessed.
Even huge companies like movie studios are now sending people to Facebook. The last trailer I saw even assumed you knew the Facebook logo and only showed "[Facebook logo]/name-of-the-movie" for the URL.
Am I really reading this headline? "Closed web is at odds with open web".... uh... duh? /.
I didn't even read the summary. But that's normal for
As they've become more aggressive about locking one in and monetizing it, I've found it less pleasant and less useful. Log in too often and they fill your "feed" with more and more crap. Frequently I want to get back to a friend's earlier post, but it has become so buried under a mountain of faux posts of others' likes and others' comments that I can't get back to posts I want to refer to. It irks me no end that FB keeps trying to stuff new faux content into my "feed" (I hate that word) to glue me endlessly to FB. The paradoxical result is that I use FB less and less and am on the verge of killing my account.
Don't step on the baby.
Basically, it's the Internet for people not skilled enough to set up a web page, a blog, a mass email system, or find games for themselves.
It will always attract the laziest and stupidest users - which will always outnumber the intelligent and privacy valuing users.
But it will never take over completely, and the rest of the web will continue to exist for everyone that isn't that lazy and foolish.
If by some miracle, Facebook dies, an equivalent will rise up to serve the same lazy, unskilled user base.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
... It is almost scary to see the rate at which Facebook is expanding and trying to absorb everything that comes in its way. ...
Like systemd? ;)
What's the problem?
So you can see your walled garden in 360 degrees.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
anyone who thinks facebook is the internet is ... well you know what I'm saying..."...you got a like..."
nothing to see here - move along
s/almost scary/actually scary/
A few weeks ago, FB shuttered most gun-related groups and pages, and banned/suspended a lot of users related to the sites. Their stock price? It spiked, as it was viewed as that they made their ecosystem safer for everyone involved.
..or AOL, if anyone still remembers that one.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
The second Facebook starts seriously ab- or even misusing that power, it will start losing customers and going the way of MySpace et al. Unlike government, it has no gruff armed people to compel you to continue paying for its services — so they have no choice but to keep the services compelling on their own.
Internet is compelling by itself. If the only internet you can get is what Facebook provides, then it's that or nothing.
Of course, Statists would be alarmed at the prospect of a corporation threatening the government's turf... Better the peasants have no Internet at all, than for a corporation to offer them an incomplete one on its own terms for free.
The problem with that is, the content is all controlled by FB, essentially forming a monopoly on ads and having sole control over what you can see and do.
It is one thing to trade your personal information for the ability to use their website and another to trade it to even get on any website. That is a lot more leverage in that than keeping their services compelling.
I don't see a problem with Facebook offering a limited set of services for free. Nobody is forced to use those services. Will people be encouraged to? Sure. Will they be only allowed to use Facebook forever until the end of time? No. Other businesses may try this model, or someone might want access to the wider Internet and purchase access.
I don't see the "evil" here, I don't see how anyone is being harmed. Facebook built a product and they want people to use it.
Love sees no species.
"Privacy advocates in India"
OK, be honest:
The only people in India posting about not giving limited free Internet access to the poor are those who already have Internet access. We didn't see the opposite side of the argument because it turns out poor people with no Internet access have a hard time posting things on the Internet.
Amazing, isn't it?
Gotta keep that caste system alive!
A few years back I came to the simple conclusion that this is basically the rebirth of online services at a new level. Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon (to an extent) - they're all just bascially ye olde mid-90ies Compuserve or T-Online. We've come full circle, with the net-neutrality debate and all that.
So far that I've even considered dropping out as a web professional alltogether.
Once the meta-level is up to speed and the geeks and nerds start using namecoin for DNS and some avantgarde mesh networking it will be another cicle of 20-30 years before it all evens out agian.
I say whatever. We'll live.
First world luxury problems.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
While they may have built the in-app browser to keep people using Facebook app (as if people were stopping because they linked out to Chrome or whatever) it was always very annoying to view links without it. Whole new app opens in a new context. With it opening first in the in-app browser it flows way more smoothly and makes it easier to quickly assess whether I want to wait for it to load or just go back to Facebook. This change was very beneficial for a social media platform that has a large percentage of content driven by external links. And by beneficial I mean it makes the app user experience better. So nefarious intentions or not, it was a nice improvement. And people didn't actually stop using Facebook because the link opened in a native browser instead. Facebook may try to give a you a control view of as much content as it can so it doesn't feel as much like a random list of links, videos and pics held together with elmer's glue and scotch tape, but that doesn't close off that content from being accessed from outside Facebook. But whatever...
You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Two downsides are that a company that has a clear interest in influencing your visiting patterns and content choices now has both total control of your browsing (potentially since they wrote the browser) and total knowledge of your browsing (potentially, since they wrote the browser and could be sending your browsing history through a sidechannel to their own servers where they can analyse it).
This is a monopoly situation and will probably lead to abuse of monopoly power.
Ok you say, but Google wrote Chrome. What's the difference? There is great similarity of situation there.
What would seem to be important is
1 these companies' transparent policy on what info they're acquiring and what they are doing with it, and these companies clear and simple to understand communication of such policy to end users. Is that transparency the case?
2) How easy is it to switch my choice to get out of the walled and monitored garden?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
But seriously though, eat a staggering pile of shit please. Thanks.
I canceled my facebook account years ago due to the sheer idiocy of it all. Recently, I found myself in a situation where I needed to get a hold of someone from my past. It came down to google for a picture of a "generic white male" and starting a facebook account under a pseudonym. Poking around I was reminded why I left. I don't need to define to anyone here what "the idiocy of facebook" means, except to say that, paradoxically, the lack of substance has increased. I found who I was looking up and so looked up canceling my account. While I eventually figured out how, the official facebook instruction led nowhere. What? Yup. Sometime after I jumped the facebook ship I landed on a very young G+ that although looked to be going nowhere, was thus far at that time largely populated by nerds, geeks, and all around intellectuals interested discussing things like science, computers misc., philosophy and politics on a level-headed platform. A few months ago, I deactivated my G+ account. Twitter has never even been on my radar. All of this following... it's sick. It seems like all of social networking is set in motion on a downward spiral.
I have sense decided to give Diaspora a spin and it's pretty cool. It has some interesting aspects. It is federated and decentralized. All possibility of a popularity contest has been been removed. You define yourself and your interests by hashtags and can further narrow or widen your scope in different directions from there. This again is a young platform that looks to be going nowhere. Although just by the way it's designed, if the idiots did descend, you would not have to know of their presence unless you wanted to. At least I think that is part of the idea. We will see how it goes.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
This really only affects those who care enough to pay attention. 99% of the users on FB will install the app and be happy as can be since they're getting a "better" experience. If they don't mind, who really cares? Sure FB can control what they see, but their friends already do that, just as they do in real life. It's the whole discussion about how fake FB life is again, just a different context.
It's not as if it's hard to avoid the walled garden, use the mobile site via a browser with protections built in. Done deal. If people don't want to pay attention or help themselves, why waste your energy caring about it? Yes FB is shaping up to be the perfect way to condition a huge group of the world population. I don't think there' much we can do about it.
my kids say facebook is for old people. they and their friends don't use it.