I think the main problem is that centralized social networking sites like Facebook decide for you what to present, what filters to apply, and you're lucky if they throw you a bone and let you set your own privacy. And then you hope that they will in fact honor it. If the NSA wants wholesale spying on thousands of facebook users, it can go ahead and do it.
What we need is a decentralized social platform. Not something like diaspora* but a basic social layer on which developers can write apps and where each person can host their own account where they wish, install their own apps and plugins, and present things their way.
Think Redmine vs some Project Management As A Service. You can have it for free and only pay for hosting, install any plugins, and customize it to your heart's content. And the NSA can't break into everyone's project management at once. They have to target someone first.
Another big draw would be to not publicize your friends or the number of friends you have. This encourages quantity over quality, but it's obvious why social networks desire higher numbers.
What we need is a decentralized social platform. Not something like diaspora* but a basic social layer on which developers can write apps and where each person can host their own account where they wish, install their own apps and plugins, and present things their way.
Think Redmine vs some Project Management As A Service. You can have it for free and only pay for hosting, install any plugins, and customize it to your heart's content. And the NSA can't break into everyone's project management at once. They have to target someone first.
Something like this: http://platform.qbix.com