Over the last several weeks, Facebook has been feeling the sting the of the internet’s collective wrath. The stories being published vary, ranging from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg calling users “fucking idiots” for trusting him, to future plans that have all privacy controls removed from the social network. The underlying message, however, is very easy to identify… Facebook is evil. Why, after being founded over six years ago, privacy zealots are just starting to ask tough questions about Facebook’s data security and control is a little perplexing, but it appears that people are indeed starting to look for alternatives. Say hello to Maxwell, Raphael, Daniel, and Ilya,the four-man social networking start-up known as Diaspora.
The guiding principle behind Diaspora is simple: you can share information with your friends without losing control of that information. Diaspora will be an open source, social networking platform that allows users to host their own data node, giving the node owner complete and total control over the data he/she is sharing. Diaspora will utilize open source technologies, such as GPG, to secure and encrypt data and, according to the company’s website, have “awesome design aesthetics.” The “four-fathers” have a scheduled release date of September 2010; you can track their progress on Twitter by following @joindiaspora. What do you think? Diaspora will certainly have a steep hill to climb to put a dent in Facebook…do you think it will compete? Either way, competition — especially open source competition — is always a very, very good thing. We’ve got the founder’s official video all queued up for you.
