Sen. Gounardes & AM Bores: Give social media users more control over their data
Originally published in
The Albany Times-Union
on
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Commentary: Give social media users more control over their data
The Digital Choice Act would protect user privacy and make it easier for New Yorkers to "move" from one platform to another.
By Andrew Gounardes and Alex Bores
Whether it’s a decade’s worth of family photos or an online professional network that took years to cultivate, many of us remain tethered to dominant platforms because of the sheer weight of our own data. But as Big Tech grows ever more powerful and monopolistic, our control over that data seems to only grow weaker.
We’ve introduced the New York Digital Choice Act to reclaim the right to our own data. Our bill enshrines three essential consumer rights: the right to download our data (portability), the right to connect across platforms (interoperability), and the right to permanently erase our data (deletion).
This legislation would require social platforms to let users export their "social graph," a dataset of their social media history, actions and information. By requiring platforms to use interoperable formats, the Digital Choice Act lets users easily transfer their data elsewhere, expanding consumer choice.
Key to our approach is consent and privacy. No data could be aggregated without the explicit consent of the user. Even then, users would retain the ability to mark their data private. Our bill would also give users the ability to delete their data entirely, letting them take their information back from tech companies that have abused it.
Our bill also requires platforms to create an accessible interface for users to transfer their social graphs elsewhere, similar to the way cellphone customers can transfer a device to a new service provider if they wish. Providers once prohibited this practice, locking phones to their network and rendering devices unusable if customers tried to switch. But regulations abolished this deeply anticompetitive practice, offering consumers real choice and fostering healthier market competition. The same concept applies here.
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