image credit: openDemocracy
The catalyst
Not surprisingly, Facebook’s Open Graph has raised a series of complaints about lack of objective “openness” in the whole project.
After all, Facebook technically owns the protocol, the data, the access. But on the other hand, they’re giving the web a gift—a new understanding of the relationships not just between linked pages (like Google) but of the relationships between people who use those pages.
As TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reported, “Grab the popcorn. There is a serious nerd fight brewing.”
The bigger issue
But the issue isn’t really about Facebook. It doesn’t matter whether you think f8 was good for the open web or just another closed system —
The nerd fight is about philosophy; not Facebook.
It seems to me that what advocates of “true openness” have taken a stance to something near utilitarianism.
(As a point of clarity, I don’t mean utilitarian in the not the colloquial use of the term—something that’s designed for its use value with little regard for aesthetic frills—but in the Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill sense.)
Let me unpack that.
“Utilitarianism” used in the philosophical sense encompasses a variety of viewpoints, but as Stanford points out,
“utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good.”
Bentham argued that we should do what provides for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. In short, utilitarianism suggests that the value of an action is only as good as its “utility” in providing general pleasure or happiness. Actions are judged by the outcomes they produce (cf. consequentialism).
We can view the Internet itself through a utilitarian lens because at its core, the net is an NEA agreement:
- Nobody owns it
- Everyone can use it
- Anyone can improve on it
NEA prevents any one person or entity from assuming power. NEA promises an entirely egalitarian relationship among users. NEA assures that actions made for improvement, even if they benefit an individual, also benefit the greater good of the community.
Enter Facebook
Of course just because the Internet is NEA, it doesn’t mean that everything built on top of it will also be NEA.
For example, Facebook’s Open Graph fails on all three fronts:
- Facebook owns it
- Only people with Facebook accounts can use it (their free now, but Facebook controls all the access)
- No one but Facebook’s developers can improve on it (the protocol itself)
Listen to the criticism leveled at Facebook from people like Dave Winer:
There is no root to the web. There is no home page. No place you have to go first before you go anywhere else. Same idea — there shouldn’t be any center to the graph-of-everything. That’s where the bar should be set. And Facebook ain’t even in the ballpark.
[...]Anyone should be able to operate a graph. And of course we should be able to point into graph.facebook.com, and not just at the root, but into any bit of data they expose.
Then everyone is on an equal footing. [...] Instead be open in the only way that truly matters — replaceable. And to be replaceable the format has to be simple. That way you have to always be earning your market, by providing superior value, functionality, performance, price and trust.
Winer wants us all to be on equal footing. He is measuring the practices of companies like Facebook against their general utility to provide for the greater good. And in that case, he’s right to say that “Facebook ain’t even in the ballpark.”
The simple reason: Facebook can see immediate benefits from controlling access and from becoming the center of the graph. Facebook is acting with a near-industrial mindset: they’re creating a walled garden, drawing us all in, and then sucking as much money out of us as possible.
With the Open Graph, Facebook defies NEA, because it’s chosen to define itself by what it owns, who it grants access and how it controls its product.
Facebook also defies utility. Although the Open Graph technically benefits everyone, it is stacked to benefit them the most. And predictably, folks like Doc Searls warn of the impending doom if Facebook’s strategy expands
Of course, then we no longer have the Web. We have the Union of Soviet Social Graph Vendors.
Chris Saad paints the situation in more dire terms:
Just like every site on the web today can have its own web server, every site should also have the choice to host (or pick) its own social server. Every site should become a fully featured peer on the social web. There is no reason why CNN can not be just as functional, powerful, effective and interchangeable as Facebook.com.
If we don’t, we will be stuck with the IIS, IE and Netscape’s of the social web and innovation will die.
The Real Tension
So the real tension in this “nerd fight” isn’t about technology at all.
It’s about how we believe society should operate.
Facebook’s philosophy amounts to Industrial capitalism: control access to your product to make as much money as possible.
Winer, Searls, and Saad have taken a moral stand against Facebook, stating the consequences of their actions will subtract, rather than add utility to the open Web.
This debate happens all the time in other areas too. For example, should vaccines be NEA, taken away from pharmaceutical companies for the greater good?
I don’t know.
But I don’t expect this debate to go away any time soon. Until markets sort out what they want from the companies and organizations they patronize, we’ll still be fighting over what it means to be “open” and “closed.”
What’s your take?
-Andrew
Image credit: openDemocracy on Flickr. See original for copyright information.
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Tags: facebook, philosophy
