[Air-L] More secure alternatives to popular social media?

[Charles Ess]

Hi all,
Partly in response to what some are calling "the Snowden Summer" - also
including the trial and sentencing of Bradley Manning - I've been poking
into these matters a bit more earnestly, including subscribing to a
(terrific) email listserv - liberationtech - operated from Stanford and
including a number of luminaries, including some well-known AoIR folk.

I'm intrigued by the raft of suggestions for more secure alternatives to
contemporary and widely popular email services, social media, etc.,
including, e.g.:

> Welcome to Trsst: An Open and Secure Alternative to Twitter
> 
> Post your thoughts, share links, and follow other interesting people or web
> sites, using the web or your mobile or any software of your choice.
> All of your private posts to individuals or friends and family are securely
> encrypted so that even your hosting provider - or government - can't unlock
> them.
> All of your public posts are digitally signed so you can prove that no one -
> and no government - modified or censored your writings.
> You control your identity and your posts and can move them to another site or
> hosting provider at any time.
> Think of Trsst as an RSS reader (and writer) that works like Twitter but built
> for the open web.  The public stuff stays public and search-indexable, and the
> private stuff is encrypted and secured.  Only you will hold your keys, so your
> hosting provider can't sell you out.
> 
> 
> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1904431672/trsst-a-distributed-secure-blog
> -platform-for-the-o/description

I call this to our collective attention as it raises a number of ethical,
social, political - and, yea, lo, verily - research questions and
possibilities.

Beginning with: is anyone doing some close study on the migration(s) to and
from such alternatives, possibly alternative practices that emerge as a
result of the sense of having greater privacy and security, etc.?

Seems like a terrific route to follow - if anyone has resources and helpful
signposts, would appreciate your sharing, either onlist or offlist.

Many thanks in advance -
Charles

Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication

Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations
<http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/>

University of Oslo 
P.O. Box 1093 Blindern
NO-0317 
Oslo Norway
email: charles.ess at media.uio.no