Taking down the Twitter Feed from Broadstuff

Wednesday, May 21. 2008

Taking down the Twitter Feed from Broadstuff

A friend asked me which was the best system for posting from Twitter to blogs, I hadn't tried out any so initially set up the Twitter one, that posted friends' feeds to the RH side of this blog. It works very well.

But I've taken it down.

I didn't like 2 things about it:

(i) It posted people's real names, not their Twitter handles

(ii) It posted stuff from people who had asked that their posts be kept private and visible only to their friends.

Its an interesting lesson in privacy - just because you set certain privacy rules in one social network it does not mean that those rules will be kept once data is exported.

Posted by Alan Patrick in Identity / Profiles / Trust at 19:41 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0) | Top Exits (0)

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Spot on about ii. I've been on a rant about that for a while. The challenge with much of the Web 2.0 APIs is that privacy levels are very wooly. It only needs one application to reinterpret the privilege settings and your Friends-Only Not-For-The-Web content is available to all.

Not Good.

And, yes there is the argument that you should assume anything you put on a web service could end up public, but you see that little wrinkly think out there in the garden? Well, that's the baby you just through out with the bath water.

Web 2.0 privacy, must try harder.

#1 Benjamin (Homepage) on 2008-05-21 19:54 (Reply)

Blimey, Sam's been muttering about the security issues of widgets for at least a year at Chinwag Towers (still awaiting a blogged elaboration) but this particular little privacy loophole is a perfect example of how identity management - and security in the larger logic of "innovative" applications / APIs - can be decimated by the humble twidget.

Deffo a good idea to remove - was it complaints or conscience that broke the camel's back?

(not that a smidgeon of "woolery" privacy is unexpected in this messy webface parking lot, pace Beacon et al

)

Is the Data Portability shizzle (and growth of web service adoption of / adherence to DP) the beginnings of a solution, or are they whistling dixie?

#2 Deirdre Molloy (Homepage) on 2008-05-21 21:06 (Reply)

@ Deirde I was increasingly unhappy with it the longer it went on. I am increasingly thinking of coming off Twitter for this reason

#3 alan p on 2008-05-21 22:14 (Reply)

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