[iDC] Ello--Alternative to Facebook

Fri Sep 26 15:28:07 UTC 2014

I think Christian Fuchs and Jonathan Beller have made very convincing arguments pointing out the problems with Ello.  Finding out about the vulture capital backing the project is the final nail in the coffin for me.

But now what?  Shall we all go over to Diaspora?  What is the best course of action?  

Thanks for all the analysis here.  So glad our listserv at least permits discussion about escaping the cultural logic of capitalism.  
Karyn

Karyn Hollis, Ph.D., English Department
Director, Concentration in Writing and Rhetoric
Associate Director, Cultural Studies Program
Villanova University 
It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor them for what they are. - Hermann Hesse 

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Ello--Alternative to Facebook (Elliot Vredenburg)
   2. Re: Ello--Alternative to Facebook (Jonathan Beller)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 10:05:35 -0400
From: Elliot Vredenburg <elliot.vredenburg at gmail.com>
To: Christian Fuchs <christian.fuchs at uti.at>
Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net >> idc" <idc at mailman.thing.net>
Subject: Re: [iDC] Ello--Alternative to Facebook
Message-ID:
	<CAJaOB5oDAmLZ0_Grp1TqJrp1a-yjfb011aUoRgKB7d8Y+7tnyg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Another quick note, which I came across this morning (on Facebook, I should
add): Apparently Ello is only possible due to $435k in VC funding, meaning its users have essentially already been sold:
https://aralbalkan.com/notes/ello-goodbye/

This seems to be the very reason why they're obscuring their legal status?despite their "hearts being in the right place," they're still stuck within the unfortunate horizon of marketing logic that dictates the web.

And alas, my blind optimism has lapsed into despondency once again...

In cahoots,
Elliot

On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 5:23 AM, Christian Fuchs <christian.fuchs at uti.at>
wrote:

> Alternative to Facebook?
>
> The important question is if Ello is a for-profit company or not and 
> if not, if it attempts to become one or not. The important point is 
> how the founders and those operating it relate to capitalism.
>
> It says it does not commodify data for advertising purposes - good!
>
> It however also says https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy:
> "We may share your personal information with third parties under 
> several circumstances, including [...] if we contract with a third 
> party service provider to offer services for you ? for example, with a 
> credit card processing company if you decide to buy something through 
> Ello. Ello does not have any affiliated companies right now. But if we 
> do in the future, we may share information with them, too."
> https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy
>
> "offer services for you" can mean anything - the crucial thing is if 
> Ello or the service-provider make monetary profit by providing this 
> service or ever in the future intend to do so. This is not clarified.
>
> Ello further says https://ello.co/wtf/post/about-ello:
>
> "We occasionally offer special features to our users. If we create a 
> special feature that you really like, you may choose to support Ello 
> by paying a very small amount of money to add that feature to your 
> Ello account.
> You never have to pay anything, and you can keep using Ello forever, 
> for free. By choosing to buy a feature now and then for a very small 
> amount of money you support our work and help us make Ello better and better."
>
> It is unclear here if Ello if these features are offered in order to 
> get donations that fund a non-profit organisation or if the intention 
> is to accumulate capital.
>
>
> Being ad-free is not enough - the point is that you have to be 
> non-capitalist in order to be an alternative to Facebook.
>
> Ello says nowhere if it is a for-profit company, a hobby project of a 
> bunch of artists, a co-operative, or whatever. It seems to conceal its 
> legal status and that's a problem.
>
> Ello says: "Ello is a Public Network" https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy.
> You are only truly public if you are public service or commonly owned.
>
> It is unclear what Ello is - and that it is not communicating its 
> legal status and what its relationship to capitalism is, is troubling. 
> A privacy policy and terms of use that do not rule out that a platform 
> is or ever becomes capitalist are just as bad as Facebook's.
>
> Best, Christian
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity
>
> List Archive:
> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/
>
>

--
Elliot Vredenburg
elliotvredenburg.com
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 10:44:55 -0400
From: Jonathan Beller <jbeller at pratt.edu>
To: Christian Fuchs <christian.fuchs at uti.at>
Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net >> idc" <idc at mailman.thing.net>
Subject: Re: [iDC] Ello--Alternative to Facebook
Message-ID: <EEC9285F-60F3-43DA-B622-74B89BC24A3B at pratt.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

Christian's points regarding proprietary relations in Ello are right on; however, significant as they are, they only constitute a first-order analysis. Foucault in "The Eye of Power" famously pointed out that if the inmates of the panoptic prison simply take over the guard tower without destroying the structure itself, the result will only be replication of the prison system since the power relations are inscribed in the prison architecture. This is certainly true of the technics of social media platforms as well. So ownership (co-operative, collective, public) and non-profiteering is one extremely significant dimension here, but the logistics of sociality wedded to technics developed through capital intensification are themselves also at issue. Does the platform inscribe the same modes of individuation and celebrity as Facebook/Twitter/Instagram? In other words, does it take as a given the metrics of valuation that monetization has instantiated at the micro-level? Many other
  questio
 ns about the interface and sociality, as well as about authorship, sharing, and the commons follow from this, but they are beyond the scope of this brief comment. My point is that we must ask not only about ownership but about the program -- Is Ello's program (in all senses of that word) anti-capitalist?

Ello as an LBGQTA site may have a leg up (if I may) on the anti-capitalist cultural logistics side since queer practices tend not to be precisely non-conforming ones. Can the practices of freedom embarked upon by the queer community queer Facebook and queer Marxism? Let's work on that!

Jonathan Beller
Professor
Humanities and Media Studies
Director, Graduate Program in Media Studies Pratt Institute
200 Willoughby Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11205

https://www.pratt.edu/academics/liberal-arts-and-sciences/graduate-media-studies/

jbeller at pratt.edu
718-636-3573 (office fax)

On Sep 26, 2014, at 5:23 AM, Christian Fuchs wrote:

> Alternative to Facebook?
> 
> The important question is if Ello is a for-profit company or not and if not, if it attempts to become one or not. The important point is how the founders and those operating it relate to capitalism.
> 
> It says it does not commodify data for advertising purposes - good!
> 
> It however also says https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy:
> "We may share your personal information with third parties under several circumstances, including [...] if we contract with a third party service provider to offer services for you ? for example, with a credit card processing company if you decide to buy something through Ello. Ello does not have any affiliated companies right now. But if we do in the future, we may share information with them, too."
> https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy
> 
> "offer services for you" can mean anything - the crucial thing is if Ello or the service-provider make monetary profit by providing this service or ever in the future intend to do so. This is not clarified.
> 
> Ello further says https://ello.co/wtf/post/about-ello:
> 
> "We occasionally offer special features to our users. If we create a special feature that you really like, you may choose to support Ello by paying a very small amount of money to add that feature to your Ello account.
> You never have to pay anything, and you can keep using Ello forever, for free. By choosing to buy a feature now and then for a very small amount of money you support our work and help us make Ello better and better."
> 
> It is unclear here if Ello if these features are offered in order to get donations that fund a non-profit organisation or if the intention is to accumulate capital.
> 
> 
> Being ad-free is not enough - the point is that you have to be non-capitalist in order to be an alternative to Facebook.
> 
> Ello says nowhere if it is a for-profit company, a hobby project of a bunch of artists, a co-operative, or whatever. It seems to conceal its legal status and that's a problem.
> 
> Ello says: "Ello is a Public Network" https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy. You are only truly public if you are public service or commonly owned.
> 
> It is unclear what Ello is - and that it is not communicating its legal status and what its relationship to capitalism is, is troubling. A privacy policy and terms of use that do not rule out that a platform is or ever becomes capitalist are just as bad as Facebook's.
> 
> Best, Christian
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity
> 
> List Archive:
> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/
> 

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