Social media without the snooping - nice idea but can it really work?

There is rising concern about what Facebook et al do with our data, but sites like MeWe and Ello have their work cut out to provide an alternative vision

Another day, another story about how Facebook habitually plays fast and loose with its users' data.

Mining users' data to sell to advertisers and brokers is, of course, the primary business model of internet giants that provide a free service, one that has created billionaires from grad students almost overnight. Because it has been such a phenomenally successful money-spinner it should really be no surprise that companies such as Facebook sometimes resort to means which, if not actually illegal, certainly sail pretty close to the wind. Anything to maintain the flow of personal data that feeds the machine.

For many users of these sites it's a case of out of sight out of mind: who cares what they are doing with my data so long the service remains fun and free? I've got nothing to hide... However, many more are unhappy, or at least uncomfortable, with this quid pro quo. They don't appreciate their family life, browsing habits, friendships and cat pictures being used as industrial feedstock and worry about where their data ends up and how it may ultimately be used.

Even in the pre-lapsarian days of 2012, before anyone had heard of Edward Snowden, a comprehensive survey conducted for the think tank Demos showed that only eight per cent of British adults were "enthusiastic sharers" of their personal data with social sites, with 30 per cent being extremely reticent and a further 22 per cent who were "sceptics". Enthusiastic sharers are surely in even more of a minority now.

Some people, such as Austrian student Max Schrems, are so unhappy with the way personal data is used that they have pursued the internet giants through the courts. Schrems alleges that Facebook violated the European Convention on Human Rights by transferring EU citizens' personal data to the NSA and has mounted a class action against the company.

Given the steady stream of negative publicity and the low levels of public trust, it is perhaps surprising that, so far, privacy-conscious alternatives to the big data-scraping social sites have struggled to make their presence felt. Perhaps there is a feeling that social sites are really all the same. After all, Snapchat, which had promised to delete photos promptly was found to be storing them instead. Maybe, despite their misgivings about privacy, the fact all their friends are on a platform is enough to keep users from straying. Or perhaps the alternatives are just not attractive enough for them to make a switch.

Certainly incumbents such as Facebook with their huge user base are going to be a hard nut to crack, and it is noticeable that the emerging alternatives are not positioning themselves as "Facebook killers" but rather new choices in a larger marketplace.

Making an honest buck

The hardest problem to overcome for social sites that do not collect personal data is how to achieve a sustainable income. Unless they are to rely on voluntary contributions, cross subsidies or generous backers with deep pockets they will need to turn to the traditional ways that internet companies make a living, many of which will require that they get a lot of users and fast.

Users of social media - and indeed of the internet in general - are famously reluctant to pay even a small amount for something for which a free alternative is available. The paid subscription model for a social network is probably a non-starter.

It's also going to be a challenge to rely on advertising for long-term income. The data-hoovering activities of Facebook and Google allow them to offer very attractive opportunities for targeted advertising, and the more data they have, the better this works. The very thing that privacy advocates hate is the thing that advertisers love, putting privacy-focused sites at an immediate disadvantage.

It goes further than that too: by collecting personal data the internet giants are able to offer personalised experiences and a steady stream of data-related innovations that keep their users coming back for more. In the absence of these it will always be harder to build the critical mass of users that is essential not just for advertisers but also to build a vibrant online world.

Another option is the "freemium" model favoured by many start-ups and open source firms: offer the basics for free and charge for premium services. This requires a free service that is good enough and interesting enough to draw in and retain a lot of users as well as extras that sufficient numbers are willing to pay for. Not impossible but a challenge nevertheless for any start-up.

New faces

In spite of these challenges there are plenty of companies that are trying to build social media businesses based on less intrusive more ethical models. The people behind them are united in their belief that we are on the verge of a privacy revolution, and that the future will be defined by users having more choice about how their data is used.

Mark Weinstein, CEO of MeWe, insists that his social platform is superior. Sidestepping comparisons with the "one billion pound gorilla" that is Facebook, he describes MeWe as a "next generation communication platform" for the new privacy conscious age.

"We do believe that we will acquire large numbers of members throughout the world, because we always do the right thing," he says.

"We always serve our members as our customers. In the world of Facebook members are just the products that they sell to their customers, the marketing and advertising companies... We believe that if you take care of your customers you will always do well."

Weinstein and his team of 30 developers have spent the past three years working on his vision of a social media site that has privacy incorporated by design. The site does not serve cookies or track users. Members only see what other members allow them to see and they are not constantly bombarded with updates about other people's activity. MeWe vows never to sell users' data to third parties and members choosing to leave can simply download all their data and close their account. This all is backed up by a privacy bill of rights that contains a "poison pill" clause that forbids MeWe from changing conditions arbitrarily without informing its users first.

"If Facebook had a clause like that they'd have been out of business six years ago," says Weinstein (left).

Certainly the site is well-designed and pretty intuitive, especially considering it is still effectively in beta. There's an app too that functions reasonably smoothly. But is it enough to tempt people over from Zuckerberg's behemoth, even on a small scale? After all, it is not dissimilar to Facebook but lacks the bells and whistles. There is no photo tagging for example (obviously this is a privacy no-no), you are not automatically notified every time your friend likes a certain brand or cat picture, and you cannot "publish to the world".

"MeWe is where you have real conversations with friends and families and co-workers, not where you show everything to the whole world - that's Facebook's role," Weinstein says.

All well and good. But the trouble is that a lot of people like those features. They are the shiny baubles they get in exchange for releasing their data to all and sundry, whether they are aware of that or not. The ever-evolving features of Facebook make them feel involved, part of something bigger, and they like putting themselves out there to the wider world. So isn't MeWe in danger of merely producing a Facebook for old, basically unsociable people? Not surprisingly Weinstein refutes this suggestion.

"We have a lot of great features coming and most of our team is young - and they are guiding our feature set, our mobile experience, and our upcoming design enhancements," he says, explaining that when it comes to privacy there are two generation gaps rather than one.

"Fourteen-year-olds are much more savvy about privacy than most 19-year-olds right now," he says.

MeWe has some high-profile backers, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee and documentary film-maker Cullen Hoback, but how is it going to earn a living? This remains unclear.

Currently it offers extra personal cloud storage for a few dollars but this is hardly revolutionary: even banks are doing it. It's certainly not enough to create the essential "wow factor", so what is going to set MeWe apart? Weinstein is cagey about giving too much away, beyond brief mentions of a "patent pending advertising model that is going to change everything", a paid-for "Pro" version, fan pages and a few spin-off services such as photo printing all due to launch this year.

"Privacy is a core value, the product already stands on its own, and there is a lot more coming. Nothing to say about what is coming - no reason to tip our cap."

The world doesn't need another Wal-Mart

A site that has set itself an even more daunting challenge is Ello, which takes no advertising at all on account of it being a public benefit corporation. It too denies that it is a "Facebook killer".

"That story wasn't ours, it came from mass media," Todd Berger, CTO and co-founder of Ello says.

"Many people use both Ello and Facebook. In any case, we don't see Facebook as a social network at all - it's an advertising platform, since the advertiser is the customer."

Backed by two tranches of VC funding totalling $11m, Ello sprang to prominence last year when many LGBT people fled Facebook because of its "real names" policy. However, the site was then in early stages of development and met with a generally frosty reception.

Moreover, the minimalistic interface was not to everyone's taste. Version 2 has just been released with some additional features but the overall look and feel is largely unchanged. The company's approach is very much "like it or lump it", and while he claims a steady flow of new members Berger says Ello is not going out of its way to attract new signups just yet. Quite the opposite.

"Lots of early people joined looking for the next Facebook, which was never our intention and still isn't. Since then we've done everything in our power to actually slow down growth," he says.

For now Ello's membership seems to be largely made up of a clique of "creatives": artists, designers, photographers, poets and the like.

Berger does not deny this. Pointing out that the site was developed by artists and programmers, he says: "We see Facebook as something like Wal-Mart, a big grey warehouse full of all the cheap junk on the internet. Ello is more of a boutique full of truly beautiful things that people are passionate about. I'm not going to argue about the value of Wal-Mart, but I don't think the world needs another one."

Like MeWe's Weinstein, Ello is also quite vague about how it will support itself in the long term.

"We'll eventually go into paid-for services. Sort of like the App Store, the base of Ello will always be free while additional features will come at a price," a spokesperson said.

Privacy, control and value

"I don't think it will be broadly privacy alone that shifts people onto other social media platforms. Although I do think that shift is possible under slightly different conditions," says Carl Miller, research director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM) at Demos.

"Platforms need to offer not just privacy but more control and value ... Can you imagine if a platform like Facebook offered users 50 per cent of the profits from their data? That could be decisive."

Another approach would be to collect personal data but only to sell it in an anonymised aggregated form.

"Selling data for data science and social study - the one increasingly being looked at by Twitter - also requires free and easy transfer and use of lots of data," points out Miller.

The other development to look out for is publicly controlled platforms using block chain technology to avoid the need for a centralised control over the platform, Miller says, but these are "still very niche at the moment".