We can solve issues raised by Roger McNamee

[Julian-Dumitrascu]

I published this message on 4 February 2018.
I write about the ten issues raised by Roger McNamee here.

1. "we must address the resistance to facts created by filter bubbles."
   With id we address this issue in the ways numbered under 1.
   We design id together with its users; you can subscribe and ask us to change its design according to your goals.
   1.1 A user can view any data in the languages of their choice, within limits set by data owners.
   A natural isle is one’s mother tongue.
   Romanians who speak English understand our world better. The average quality of the Romanian press content is low.
   1.2 We offer better tools for information providers and more help using them, so that they can apply high standards.
   id lets content providers sell their content. Each of our users is an adult human being; we don’t intend to sell to groups of people, but our users can form groups. Those who build a business team label the data sets owned by their team e.g. with their team’s name. Each user can provide information services; I use this wording because we need better words than “press” and “journalism”.
   1.3 id lets you view:
   1.3.1 messages by the time when they were created or updated;
   I don’t feel in a bubble when I view the most recent messages in English.
   1.3.2 conversations by the number of participants;
   Can one avoid bubbles when one views conversations in their mother tongue to which many people participate?
   1.3.3 users by:
   1.3.3.1 the time when they started using id;
   Can one avoid bubbles when one becomes acquainted with new users?
   1.3.3.2 the number of data sets they allow you to view;
   Can one avoid a bubble when one views many topics?
   1.4 You can follow as many people as you please.
   1.5 We let you link data and define relationships among data sets, and want to let you browse data in a 3D view, too.
   1.6 We build global databases of public data. We’re all about the base; no bubble!
   1.7 We help you correspond and talk with educators and advisers about any data sets.
   1.8 We act in support of cooperation so that people are not isolated, misunderstood, or marginalised.
   You can communicate with the world about the world.

2. "Forcing tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg to justify the unjustifiable, in public — without the shield of spokespeople or PR spin — would go a long way to puncturing their carefully preserved cults of personality in the eyes of their employees."
   I see no connection between this and our business. I don’t know any unjustifiable things in our plans; we make plans together with our users in order to help them achieve their goals; our actions are justified primarily by their requests. Our communicators don’t have the task to prevent people from knowing how we work; we intend to broadcast some of our work; sometimes our users will be able to communicate with us and thus interrupt some work. Sincerity is one of the characteristics of our communication. We show how much we like public communication in the way we manage data; for instance, we talk with people in Hangouts On Air; how easy is it to share a YouTube URL? Cults of personality seem so far away from my team members that I am not motivated to discuss this; we intend to keep our hierarchy minimal and the number of decision makers high.

3. "it’s essential to ban digital bots that impersonate humans."
   When Roger accepts my invitation to talk, he can continue this conversation as he finds fit.
   At the moment I construe his words as a suggestion to ban fake accounts. One can start using id after proving one’s identity to our team. We help users identify themselves each time they use id, e.g. by using a Yubi key to log in. id users are accountable and liable for how they use id. We don’t intend to have any robots use id.

4.1 "the platforms should not be allowed to make any acquisitions until they have addressed the damage caused to date, taken steps to prevent harm in the future, and demonstrated that such acquisitions will not result in diminished competition."
We don’t plan to acquire any company. We build a network of software developers, help their software communicate with ours according to your goals and requests, and help you build relationships with these developers. We feel that such actions let economy and society find their balance.
4.2 "no one had an incentive to make internet tools easy to use."
We make it easier to use computers.
We consider the following areas and ask for support to bring about improvements there, too:
4.2.1 In order to use a computer, one must be able to read. Who wants to take on the task of improving at least the basic education in one or more countries?
4.2.2 In order to use a computer one needs:
4.2.2.1 a reliable management cycle of electrical energy
Feel free to discuss this in detail with me.
Another team in our group takes requests to build solar power plants.
4.2.2.2 a sustainable management cycle of the Internet infrastructure
Another team in our group is active in this field. Feel free to discuss your plans with me.
4.2.3 One needs to buy and configure computers, routers, and other devices.
Another team in our group helps people with these things.
4.2.4 Each computer uses an operating system.
Another team in our group helps people choose and configure operating systems.
We support efforts to improve operating systems. This is a topic in itself, which you can discuss with me.
(I think we can discuss whatever is necessary and I haven’t mentioned here after we cover the more important topics among those I’ve mentioned.)

5. "the platforms must be transparent about who is behind political and issues-based communication."
   I’d like Roger to rephrase this so that I’m sure I understand his goal.
   Does he mean that we must allow every user to view data that we don’t own?
   What does “behind” mean? That person 1 has created a data set, allowed person 2 to copy its content, and paid them to pose as the content creator? We agree to act in support of morality and legality according to our terms of use. If we can’t view these data sets, I don’t see that we are involved. Each human being has more power than any tool and I want every human being to retain such power; I accept suggestions to talk with you about this power and its relationship to computer software. We want to help id users understand, and protect themselves from, misuse of data and abuse in communication.

6. "the platforms must be more transparent about their algorithms."
   We allow people to see the id code. We design starting from people, not from mathematical functions. Other statements I’ve made indicate that we fulfil such requirements as part of our plans for communication management and data management.

7. "the platforms should be required to have a more equitable contractual relationship with users."
   id users own their data. We look for legal advice in order to find out where and how we can declare id users “service owners” for the period of their payments.
   Because most stakeholders might agree that on the whole our service will only improve, I find it more important that we can offer different users custom id versions.
   We agree to different sets of terms with different categories of users. We must keep improving the software, but we try to suggest few changes to our service terms; we suggest reasonable terms and we discuss them with id users. We change service terms by mutual agreement. I invite you to start negotiating your agreement with me with the goal of building an equitable relationship with my company.

8. "we need a limit on the commercial exploitation of consumer data by internet platforms."
   We don’t exploit people. We don’t own your data and want to relinquish control over them to the highest possible and reasonable degree; you might ask us to use some of your data in order to achieve some things in your user account. In order to provide statistics, our software must process many data, but only those you allow it to; we agree to strive for the highest possible and useful degree of data agnosticism.
   While it can be complex, there is one exchange between us: we provide the services and you transfer to us the agreed amounts of money. The exchanging parties are the service provider and the service user.

9. "consumers, not the platforms, should own their own data."
   We don’t intend to interfere with your ownership over the data you input into id. That is a legal matter between data owners and data users. We help you manage your data; you task us with operations like data storage and transfer; you may store all your data on computers owned by you.

10. "Facebook and Google have been allowed to dominate several industries"
    My life depends on Google because I like their communication services best and I don’t want to use any of the other communication services I’ve tried. We develop id because there’s too much room for improvement e.g. in G Suite and we can’t spend our lives hoping that someone will fill it.
    We want to optimise data management, not to make a small group rich. We give a very large percentage of our clients’ money to our providers from many countries. You can influence our financial plan.