facebook-tutorial.mdView |
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| 1 … | +## Centralization vs. Decentralization: Facebook Example |
| 2 … | + |
| 3 … | +# Introduction |
| 4 … | + |
| 5 … | +A core aspect of Scuttlebutt is that we are decentralized, meaning we don't rely on any central |
| 6 … | +server. This aspect is deeply important to our community, as we believe decentralized systems will |
| 7 … | +help bring a more optimistic and equal future. This aspect also makes Scuttlebutt markedly |
| 8 … | +different from the internet, as most sites and services there are centralized. |
| 9 … | + |
| 10 … | +This centralized design is not obvious. Web developers want their sites to be simple and |
| 11 … | +accessible, so the technical processes that power them are hidden in the background. But the |
| 12 … | +technical side has a profound affect on what is and is not possible online, as well as the level of |
| 13 … | +influence these sites have upon your general life. |
| 14 … | + |
| 15 … | +To better understand what makes Scuttlebutt different, it's good to know how exactly a centralized |
| 16 … | +system works. So let's take a look at how something simple, like sending a personal message, works |
| 17 … | +with a centralized model. Specifically, let's take a look at how it'd work on Facebook. And to be |
| 18 … | +even more specific, let's say it’s a message to your grandma. |
| 19 … | + |
| 20 … | +A quick note: There's an absurd amount that happens behind the scenes when you do anything online, |
| 21 … | +more than I could cover in a 10 minute read. This article is meant to explain the fundamental |
| 22 … | +essence of a centralized site, and so some complexities are simplified into their basic conceptual |
| 23 … | +model. It’s sorta like how the phrase "It’s raining outside" should not be considered a definitive |
| 24 … | +description of weather, but still gets a necessary point across. |
| 25 … | + |
| 26 … | +And so, let’s get to the point! |
| 27 … | + |
| 28 … | + |
| 29 … | +**How to Send a Facebook Message to your Grandma: a Step-by-Step Guide** |
| 30 … | + |
| 31 … | +**The Setup:** It's a Thursday afternoon, and you realize you haven't talked to your grandma in |
| 32 … | +a while. You know your grandma's bookclub meets on Wednesdays, and so you come up with the |
| 33 … | +(incredible) idea of sending her the message: "Hey Grandma, how are you! How was book club |
| 34 … | +yesterday?" |
| 35 … | + |
| 36 … | +**You open up your computer and head to *www.facebook.com** |
| 37 … | + |
| 38 … | +-At this moment, the first key technical process occurs. Which is that your computer requests some |
| 39 … | +information from the server that holds Facebook. The words 'facebook.com' are an address for where, |
| 40 … | +within the vast network of the internet, this server broadcasts itself, but the server is actually |
| 41 … | +a physical _thing_ living somewhere in the real world. Since Facebook (the site) is huge , it's |
| 42 … | +server must be huge too-- rows upon stacks upon rows of simultaneously running computers, all housed |
| 43 … | +in a giant warehouse situated in the middle of nowhere so Facebook can save on real estate costs. |
| 44 … | +This warehouse will likely be near some natural body of water, like a river. The server is |
| 45 … | +receiving, storing, and sending everyone’s messages at once, which causes it to get get _hot_. By |
| 46 … | +diverting water from the river, Facebook has a natural, inexpensive coolant, a grand version of the |
| 47 … | +icepack you place beneath your computer when you want to watch a movie and use photoshop at the same |
| 48 … | +time. |
| 49 … | + |
| 50 … | +When you access Facebook on the browser, your computer sends a request to this idyllic riverside |
| 51 … | +monolith, which responds by showing you the data on its server it would like you to see. In this |
| 52 … | +case, it's the homepage. Because the internet is awesome and powerful, this transaction happens |
| 53 … | +near instantaneously. But what's important to remember is that your computer is _viewing_ the data |
| 54 … | +that makes up the site, but it is not holding it. All of it is still living on the distant server. |
| 55 … | +It's like when you video chat with someone: you can see their nice face and messy room, but their |
| 56 … | +face and room are not alive inside your computer. When you go onto their site, Facebook lets you |
| 57 … | +view your photos, friends, memories, and posts, without you holding any of them yourself. |
| 58 … | + |
| 59 … | +**You log into your FB account** |
| 60 … | + |
| 61 … | +The server holds all the data about Facebook; not just your Facebook, the entirety of the site from |
| 62 … | +back when it was `thefacebook`. To make managing their data easier, FB will optimize how it's |
| 63 … | +stored, how it's organized, and how the server should access it. But this efficiency is designed to |
| 64 … | +help computers and servers, and so the information that makes up facebook, when viewed as just data |
| 65 … | +on a hard drive, would likely make very little sense to you. There would not be a folder called |
| 66 … | +"You!" that held all your stuff, and placed neatly beside folders called "Your Friend!" and "Your |
| 67 … | +Grandma!". Instead, the entire site is a folded up, byzantine jumble of efficiency. - |
| 68 … | + |
| 69 … | +Facebook creates _the illusion_ of order through the metaphor of a user account. User accounts give |
| 70 … | +filtered views into the data, so you only see things relevant to you. To ensure your unique view |
| 71 … | +cannot be seen by other users, they let you assign your username a password, so your partitioned |
| 72 … | +view is specific to a login (or at least to whomever knows your login). This information about |
| 73 … | +usernames and passwords _also_ lives on Facebook's server, in its own database. This is why you may |
| 74 … | +have your _classic_ nickname that everyone knows you by, but when you try to choose that as |
| 75 … | +a username, Facebook tells you it's already taken. The server had scanned the database of all |
| 76 … | +Facebook names to see if the one you asked for already exists in some row. Since it does, it asks |
| 77 … | +if you'd prefer to use "ClassicNicknameEveryoneKnowsMeBy2". If you choose that, it'll then add your |
| 78 … | +new nickname as a new row to the database. |
| 79 … | + |
| 80 … | +The essential point is that your personal, protected Facebook account is a metaphor, designed to |
| 81 … | +give you a feeling of security and a personalized, filtered view into your data. These accounts |
| 82 … | +protect your view from being seen by other users, and protect Facebook's private company data from |
| 83 … | +being seen by you. User accounts are effective metaphors, and provide a great user experience, but |
| 84 … | +do not reflect how your data is being physically held and processed. In reality, the server is |
| 85 … | +holding your memories, friends and photos in a big cyber stew of everyone’s friends, memories and |
| 86 … | +photos. From this view, things like “private messages” or “closed groups” don’t really mean |
| 87 … | +anything. This is because the structure and rules of your data is designed for Facebook's servers, |
| 88 … | +and not for you. |
| 89 … | + |
| 90 … | +**You open a Private Message Window, add your Grandma as the recipient, and write her your message.** |
| 91 … | + |
| 92 … | +When you click the send button on your private message, it doesn't actually send it to yourgrandma. |
| 93 … | +Instead, it sends it to Facebook's server with a request for them to please give your Grandma access |
| 94 … | +to it. Facebook stores your message in their database, and then decides whether or not they pass it |
| 95 … | +along. |
| 96 … | + |
| 97 … | +Giving Facebook this responsibility has some benefits. For example: if your grandmother blocked |
| 98 … | +you, for some reason, then Facebook would not send your message. Or, if you weren't friends with |
| 99 … | +your Grandma yet, then Facebook wouldn't send it directly to her, instead placing it in her 'other' |
| 100 … | +inbox so she doesn’t get too much non-friend spam. In most cases, they'll send your message as you |
| 101 … | +asked and do it so quickly you don't realize this exchange took place, but on a technical level, the |
| 102 … | +delivery of your private message is a decision Facebook gets to make, and you don't have any say in |
| 103 … | +the matter. |
| 104 … | + |
| 105 … | +There's quite a lot that happens when you add your message to Facebook’s server, besides it being |
| 106 … | +eventually sent to your grandma. This is a partial summary of some of the decisions and processes |
| 107 … | +that take place. |
| 108 … | + |
| 109 … | +First, a package is sent from your computer to Facebook's server, where it will now reside. This |
| 110 … | +package says: |
| 111 … | + - I would like to send a message to my grandma. |
| 112 … | + - I want this message to be private. |
| 113 … | + - here are the contents: "Hi! Grandma, how was book club yesterday?" |
| 114 … | + |
| 115 … | +Facebook parses the entirety of the message, the context of it withinyour relationship to your |
| 116 … | +grandma, and the conclusions it can draw from the exchange. Then it uses all these things to make |
| 117 … | +some money. |
| 118 … | + |
| 119 … | +This isn't necessarily evil. Facebook _needs_ to make money to keep its server running, as that’s |
| 120 … | +what keeps the site online. Since all of Facebook.com lives on this, it gets expensive: There's the |
| 121 … | +price of the warehouse, the cost of the actual physical devices holding the information, the staff |
| 122 … | +maintaining this hardware, the staff continually working on the software to keep it technically |
| 123 … | +updated and secure, and the staff handling the upkeep of the space itself. There’s also all the |
| 124 … | +people working in some way for Facebook(the company), and they need to get paid too. |
| 125 … | + |
| 126 … | +Facebook chose advertising, essentially, as their business model. They sell ad space, like many |
| 127 … | +sites do. What makes Facebook powerful, though, is that they can offer targeted ad space--in other |
| 128 … | +words, they give advertisers the ability to reach the right people with the right things at the |
| 129 … | +right time. Facebook does this by accumulating as much data as possible from you and your social |
| 130 … | +connections, from which they build a highly specific customer profile of you. They can then sell |
| 131 … | +the ad space of your specific partition to the companies that want to target your profile. This |
| 132 … | +helps the companies make sure their marketing budget is bringing in the highest return on |
| 133 … | +investment. |
| 134 … | + |
| 135 … | +Since all Facebook activity is stored within a central server, Facebook is able to make some |
| 136 … | +stunning connections and conclusions from the data available to them — connections you may not see. |
| 137 … | + |
| 138 … | +For example, they quickly parse your message and conclude that the specific user account you chose |
| 139 … | +as the message recipient is your grandma, which puts her in a generational demographic. They also |
| 140 … | +know you submitted the message on a Thursday, but asked about a book club that happened yesterday. |
| 141 … | +So they know your grandma has a regular book club on Wednesdays. Next, they look at all your |
| 142 … | +grandma's other private messages, and find several from someone named Victor who always messages her |
| 143 … | +"Sorry, i'm going to be late! Should I bring anything?" at 12:30 pm on Wednesday. They find several |
| 144 … | +other friends writing "what a great time!" around 4 pm. So they conclude that the book club is |
| 145 … | +likely happening from 1 to 3 and that Victor is a member. In addition, they have a small |
| 146 … | +personality sketch of Victor. |
| 147 … | + |
| 148 … | +As they have all of Victor's other data, they can read through any of his private or public |
| 149 … | +messages. They find a private message from December asking how he likes his new iPhone. They also |
| 150 … | +find a public message from him exclaiming "So much to do, and not enough time!" further solidifying |
| 151 … | +his customer profile. |
| 152 … | + |
| 153 … | +All of this culminates next Wednesday morning, when an advertisement for Audible.com is placed on |
| 154 … | +Victor's Facebook feed. Facebook knows he'll be going to a book club, is always pressed for time, |
| 155 … | +has an iPhone, and would probably be susceptible to signing up for some audio books. They could |
| 156 … | +even use data they're pulling from other sites they maintain a presence on (usually through a like |
| 157 … | +or share button). For example, they could see Victor bought a specific mystery thriller from Amazon |
| 158 … | +that your grandma also bought, determine it's a _mystery_ book club the two of them are in, and |
| 159 … | +adjust the book featured in the Audible advertisement so it’s even more persuasive. |
| 160 … | + |
| 161 … | +In this way, a message you sent to your grandma is used to adjust and target the ads for someone you |
| 162 … | +may have never met. This also helps explain the eerie phenomenon where you are talking in-person |
| 163 … | +about some upcoming trip that you've never talked about online, and the next day see an add for that |
| 164 … | +destination on your facebook feed. This could happen because Facebook has bugged your phone and is |
| 165 … | +listening in on your conversations, or it’s because your friends are talking about you on Facebook |
| 166 … | +and not telling you. The truth to this paranoia is known only by Facebook. |
| 167 … | + |
| 168 … | +With all of the social connections and content you've shared on their network, Facebook has compiled |
| 169 … | +highly detailed dossier on who you are. This dossier is useful to sell you things, but they found |
| 170 … | +that the dossier itself can be sold to interested parties. Often, these parties aren't doing any |
| 171 … | +marketing at all. |
| 172 … | + |
| 173 … | +One known party is law enforcement. Security companies have built software intended to help police |
| 174 … | +find criminals before they've even committed a crime. They do this by pulling in as much data from |
| 175 … | +social networks as possible, comparing the conversations and activities of the larger population |
| 176 … | +against people who have been arrested for crimes, and through this determine what sort of social |
| 177 … | +traits criminals share. |
| 178 … | + |
| 179 … | +What this means is that your inquiry about your grandma's bookclub might fit a trait for people |
| 180 … | +arrested for drug possession, and so when you submit your message you are privately tagged with the |
| 181 … | +labels "grandchild" and "likely drug offender" Or, you may already be on the list of likely drug |
| 182 … | +offender, and so your question to your grandma is added to the list of traits these potential |
| 183 … | +criminals may share. Or the opposite could be true, and your broader Facebook activity put you into |
| 184 … | +a "law-abider" category. In this case, your activity helps flesh out the "law abider" profile and |
| 185 … | +by extension the "likely criminal" profile. These profiles are then fed into a computer program that |
| 186 … | +tells your local police to go knock on someone's door and "check in", because that person didn't |
| 187 … | +write to their grandma this Thursday, and that seems "suspicious". |
| 188 … | + |
| 189 … | +While this example seems absurd, it is just this sort of small connection/large conclusion that is |
| 190 … | +the heart of "big data" analysis. Big Data is powered by a near-mystic belief that, by grabbing as |
| 191 … | +much data as possible and sorting it in as many ways as possible, compelling patterns will emerge |
| 192 … | +and these patterns can predict behaviors and futures. |
| 193 … | + |
| 194 … | +All of this data, the targeted adspace, the endless dossiers on who you are — these are worth a lot |
| 195 … | +of money to a broad set of people. And through selling the data that you generate, Facebook keeps |
| 196 … | +their servers online, letting them log valuable information on you plus everything else they want to |
| 197 … | +do. It is how their service stays both free and incredibly profitable. |
| 198 … | + |
| 199 … | +**Your Grandma receives the message** |
| 200 … | + |
| 201 … | +Now thoroughly vetted, Facebook has the responsibility to send your message to your grandma. But |
| 202 … | +they may choose a couple different routes, which--since it's on their servers--they have the right |
| 203 … | +to do. |
| 204 … | + |
| 205 … | +If your grandma is on Facebook often, they may decide to show it to her the next time she logs in, |
| 206 … | +but they'll do so after some random amount of time, to make logging on feel more appealing. |
| 207 … | + |
| 208 … | +It's exciting when you have a new notification. It gives you a quick dopamine thrill like seeing |
| 209 … | +a package in front of your door. Facebook knows this, and knows that this makes their service |
| 210 … | +addicting, so they try to accentuate this rush as much as possible. So your grandma might sign on |
| 211 … | +and see nothing in the notification bar for nearly a second, before a bright red '1' appears. Since |
| 212 … | +she's on the site often, she'll naturally learn that there is this delay, but since it's random she |
| 213 … | +won't be able to predict how long the delay will be. And so the act of logging on and waiting for |
| 214 … | +a notification will become a thrilling game of chance, similar to a slot machine. |
| 215 … | + |
| 216 … | +If she isn't on the site much, then Facebook may use your message to try to get her back. They've |
| 217 … | +already read its contents, and know that you're her grandchild, and assume that messages from family |
| 218 … | +are great leverage for converting someone back into a user. They also likely have her email and |
| 219 … | +phone number on file, as they asked for both when she signed up. So they will send her an email |
| 220 … | +with a brief message like "your grandchild wants to talk to you" with a link to get directly into |
| 221 … | +facebook. If that doesn't work, they may send a text message with something more direct like |
| 222 … | +"click this to log into facebook right away." In either case, the link they provide will have |
| 223 … | +a reference token to your message, so if she does log on they'll know that _you_ are the reason why. |
| 224 … | +They will then subtly alter her newsfeed so that your posts show up more often, since you’ve talked |
| 225 … | +recently and she must be interested in how you are doing. |
| 226 … | + |
| 227 … | +Since user data is their main source of income, they need their users on their site as much as |
| 228 … | +possible. Even if your grandma wants to take a social media break, it is in Facebook's best |
| 229 … | +interest to win her back as quickly as possible, and get her addicted as completely as possible. |
| 230 … | +Your message acts as that addicting hook. In a way, this helps you too, since them selling the fact |
| 231 … | +that you can influence your grandma helps keep their servers online, and the servers are required |
| 232 … | +for you to send the message at all. |
| 233 … | + |
| 234 … | +**Messages are Read and everyone's happy** |
| 235 … | + |
| 236 … | +In centralized systems, the company and it's servers acts as the intermediary for all activity. |
| 237 … | +There is no way for you to send a message directly to your grandma on facebook. By design, Facebook |
| 238 … | +has to intercept, store, and send the message for you. |
| 239 … | + |
| 240 … | +In this example scenario your grandma receives the message, Victor signs up for Audible, the cops |
| 241 … | +have a potential new arrest, and everyone is happy. But there are a couple ways this could have |
| 242 … | +gone wrong, due to it being a centralized model. |
| 243 … | + |
| 244 … | +For one, the server that holds your message could have gone down. Since it’s a physical object, the |
| 245 … | +reason could be as simple as the device getting unplugged. Since the data centers holding the |
| 246 … | +servers are so huge, they need to be placed in strategic geographic areas, which makes the system |
| 247 … | +far more fragile than we realize. There have been incidents where, for example, a farmer |
| 248 … | +accidentally plows right through a remote server cable in their field, and the farmer accidentally |
| 249 … | +causes a large portion of the internet to go down for hours. There have been other cases where an |
| 250 … | +employee in charge of maintaining the server forgets some crucial step, and causes a software mishap |
| 251 … | +that shuts down another part of the internet. These scenarios don't happen often, but are |
| 252 … | +a necessary risk within centralized systems. |
| 253 … | + |
| 254 … | +Alternately, Facebook may find their income model doesn't work and they go out of business. Since |
| 255 … | +they own the servers, and the data you've placed within them, if they go out of business, then your |
| 256 … | +messages disappear with them. Most likely, Facebook would tell you they're shutting down, and offer |
| 257 … | +a way for you to export all your photos, stories, and memories. This is a nicety though, and one |
| 258 … | +that they do not have to offer. They may not get the chance to do this nicety, either. For |
| 259 … | +example, two news sites (DNAinfo and TheGothamist) were recently shut down without notice by their |
| 260 … | +owner because he disagreed with the staff wanting to unionize. In this case, he pulled them offline |
| 261 … | +so quickly that no professional contributor was able to retrieve the work they had published. |
| 262 … | +Resumes and portfolios were full of dead links and lack of proof, because of the learned assumption |
| 263 … | +to rely on a “data cloud”, which is another metaphor intended to hide servers from your view. |
| 264 … | +Fortunately, the personal data you store on Facebook is worth a lot of money, and Mark Zuckerberg |
| 265 … | +has promised that he is very nice, so it isn’t likely that they’ll remove your photos anytime soon. |
| 266 … | + |
| 267 … | +However, Facebook may also determine that you are not a good fit for their site and block your |
| 268 … | +access to it. Since access to your account is a metaphor they created, they can easily and legally |
| 269 … | +do this. In that case, your old information would still live and be sold on the server, but be |
| 270 … | +inaccessible by you. In extreme cases, a government may decide that Facebook (or its servers) must |
| 271 … | +be shut down, due to some profound shift in power. In that case, policy-abiding users would have |
| 272 … | +little say. |
| 273 … | + |
| 274 … | +**Conclusion** |
| 275 … | + |
| 276 … | +A centralized system like Facebook offers you a way to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. As |
| 277 … | +you can see, the way you do so is pretty simple, though with a few unexpected steps. A decentralized |
| 278 … | +model lets you send messages and stay in touch too, but without the need for a central server, and |
| 279 … | +all the hidden costs and companies that requires. |
| 280 … | + |
| 281 … | + |
| 282 … | + |
| 283 … | + |