Opinion articles present diverse opinions and do not represent the position of WEB3+
This article is written from the first-person perspective of the author.
The “Walled City Literature” Chaos: When Your Digital Efforts Vanish Overnight
Yesterday, the “Walled City Literature” unexpectedly became a reporting area for suspension disasters.
Background: Recently, Meta has been cracking down on the community with “unannounced suspensions,” resulting in the overnight loss of years of effort for many verified KOLs, with over 3,000 victims forming a self-rescue group. Recently, three editors from Walled City Publishing were suspended at the same time, and have since found themselves without help. (Editor’s note: Two of them have had their accounts restored as of August 2.)
During this period, Facebook users concentrated on two questions:
1. How can permanently suspended accounts be restored?
2. How can accounts that have not yet been suspended be backed up?
The former is a path for relief (protecting rights), while the latter is a precautionary measure (prevention), as you never know when it might be your turn.
The Facebook accounts of the three editors from Walled City Publishing are still seeking assistance. Additionally, there is one survivor, as the fourth editor’s Facebook account is still active. However, he is in a state of panic, discussing with me via Messenger how to back up years of data left on Facebook. Of course, Facebook allows you to download a copy of your personal information, including posts, photos, videos, etc. However, I find it somewhat cumbersome, so two years ago, I hired a student worker (actually just a friend who was unemployed) to manually crawl and save my writings, converting them into Markdown format, enabling my work to be quickly revived on my personal website whenever needed. (Though I still haven’t completed my personal website…)
Why can phone numbers be transferred, but Facebook posts cannot?
What constitutes a “good social media account backup method”? This issue has been discussed internationally for a long time. After all, platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter—often referred to as “walled gardens”—do not profit from backing up data; they might prefer to keep your data on their end. Rather than stating that there are no sufficiently effective backup tools, it would be more accurate to say that they intentionally or unintentionally raise the barriers to transferring data out. This is not just my opinion; it has been a widely acknowledged issue for years.
At this point, it is appropriate to introduce the concept of “data portability.” This means that any content I publish on any social platform should be transferable to any location I desire, similar to how a “mobile phone number” can be ported to any telecom company.
Further reading: Number Portability Services
Mobile phone numbers were not always portable; it was only after the introduction of the “Telecommunication Service Number Portability Management Regulations” in 2003 that number portability became mandatory. Telecom operators are unlikely to voluntarily offer NP services, as no one wants to lose customers. Thus, the government steps in to enhance “user autonomy” and “promote competition in the telecom market,” leading to amendments in the telecommunications law, which allowed many smaller telecom providers to successfully enable users to carry their numbers over to their services. (Although after twenty years, Taiwan is left with only three major telecom companies.)
In the online world, where individuals have the freedom to migrate, the content they create should also have that freedom.
From Utah to the Federal Universe: Seeing the Dawn of Digital Freedom
Just two weeks ago, AU told me that the state of Utah in the United States passed the “Digital Choice Act” this year, aimed at reshaping social media to give users more choices and control, effectively addressing the issue troubling the fourth Walled City editor.
This bill has garnered bipartisan support. Its essence lies in “data portability” and “data interoperability.”
Further reading: Data Portability
The former not only mandates that major platforms provide download services for users’ posts and videos but also requires that “how many likes, shares, and comments” be included in the download, as these data contribute to the social graph (metadata). The latter means that data should be easily transferable to another platform, just as emails can be moved from Gmail to Outlook, or mobile numbers can be switched from Chunghwa Telecom to Taiwan Mobile.
Currently, many social platforms already have relevant open standards. Even within Facebook’s universe, Threads has effectively bridged the federal universe (Fediverse) standards, allowing interoperability with other platforms using the ActivityPub standard. For example, I can use my “Chui” to view posts on the g0v social platform.
How does Audrey Tang view this?
Don’t Wait for Suspension to Act: Taiwan Needs Its Own “Digital Choice Act”
We do not know when Taiwan will have relevant legislation on “data portability,” as platforms are unlikely to voluntarily provide sufficiently good services, just as they are not very proactive in combating fraud unless mandated by law. If fraud can be legislated against, can data portability be?
Utah has already demonstrated that it is indeed possible.
However, in Taiwan, digital-related legislation has always been a hot potato. At this moment, if we can pay more attention to related issues (rumor has it that those suspended by Facebook are planning to rally), perhaps the “grown-ups” can move faster.
One day, we won’t have to continually worry about the question, “How can we back up accounts that have not yet been suspended?”