Social Media as a Public Utility

Few people understand the power of social media and the impact these platforms and data they generate can have on our society.

If we agree that a democracy is the best form of government, we should know that he who controls social media can manipulate a democracy. 

The goal of our project is to put social media in the users hands as the technology is perfectly suited for collaborative governance of any business.

We urge you to become involved, and participate with our public platform.

We don't let private individuals control nuclear weapons, and it makes no sense to have a technology even more powerful and potentially dangerous in private hands. 

From The Guardian 

A crisis is looming. These monopoly platforms hoovering up our data have no competition: they’re too big to serve the public interest

From Forbes

 Data in the hands of private companies can be used to manipulate society and elections.

In April of this year,Mark Zuckerberg answered congressional questions concerning the use of data from Facebook to manipulate voters. It was clear that those asking the questions did not understand the abilities Social Media can give to those wanting to manipulate elections, consumers, or social trends.

Regarding the difference between  information-collecting and government surveillance,  Zukerberg said ,

“People often ask what the difference is between surveillance and what we do. I think the difference is extremely clear: it’s that on Facebook you have control over your information.” 

You may have control of your information, but it's the collective information of others that is valuable and you don't have access to that.

Facebook and other players have this data, they know what to do with it, and have the tools to act. This creates an unleveled paying field, further centralizing the economy, and  will kill a free market economy.

The real value of information is as the collective information of many people, and the ability to message those people via targeted advertising.

Our goal is to perfect a platform that gives you verifiable privacy and control.  Providing both the tools and knowledge, that  enable you to have more control and better use of information. 

The design of Civilsocialmedia.

Inside of our site you will notice that we have a directory with maps, personal notes, private messages, a catalog-commerce section,  a news section, and more. 

All is built from free stock open source software. Unlike other platforms, once you learn any of our components you can then use them for your business, or family for free.

Our vision of social media is different.  We would like to see your data in your hands as a separate operative unit that connects and shares with the larger social media platforms.  That way you can use several social medias, they can come and go, but you keep your data always in one place.   

Example:

          *     You would use these open source components for your business website and they would seamlessly feed to and from our main site. Items you have for sale could be shared with the main site, and sales data could be extracted for your business use.

        *      Similarly for personal use you would keep your personal information personal. Documents and images are on your personal server, and only shared by you when you choose with the main social media site. 

In either scenario you would be assured the greatest control of privacy as well as access to the public social and commercial network.

All social media technology is based on an open source relational database.  What this means is that each time you post something it automatically goes into the database with selected relations, like,  who posted it,  the date it was posted, taxonomy(tags),  and any other relations you choose to add or remove.

This is very useful in building a history.  Of course you would want this history on your own server in such a way as to prevent anyone having access to it without your explicit permission. All of this comes with the standard core of the software, and is free for anyone to use. 

The system has three components, the software that gives access the database online, the database, and a folder with files, like images and  documents. All three of these components can be downloaded into a pen drive and that backup kept in a locked drawer.    

 This is the same regardless of the size or complexity of the site, it is also all free.  

We see this technology as the new literacy.

Every child should know how to use this at an early age.  When children go to school they connect their personal site to the school network. When they go to university they tie to the university system, when they go to work they tie into the company system. Throughout the history of that person they keep their data in one place, and backed up into a pen drive. 

As they grow older they would have a rich neatly sorted history of personal, school, and work documents.

One life well documented, all in one place safe and secure.