Thought I've been mulling: Designate a day of the month to data liberation.
Get YOUR data archived off SOMEONE ELSE'S system.
This isn't /removing/ it (unless you choose), but it is /getting a copy of what you created or want to control/.
So, that's the basic concept.
I'm thinking my way through the idea and am posting this to brainstorm.
My basic thought is to 1) organise the document as a FAQ, and 2) address process.
So let's dive in ....
1/
Q: But Service X /doesn't have/ a data liberation option.
A: This is actually a huge part of the point. *Tell them you want it.*
*Tell your government representatives you demand this.* Regulation is a tool.
*Tell your friends you want this, and that they should too.*
*Tell your family you want this, and that they should too.* Those holiday snaps, or vids, or chats, or essays, or anything else? *You should have control over them.*
Q: But I don't know how to use <some download tool>.
A: Then make that the goal for this month. "How do I use tool X?" Maybe you sort it out, maybe you don't. But you've made progress toward that goal.
Q: I don't even know how many services I'm using.
A: Again: that's the point. You /should know/. (And should think: "Do I really need this?" A year or two back I ran across someone who had /over 700 personal online accounts/. That's a lot, but not unknown...
You should use Data Liberation Day to inventory your accounts, see if you can reach them, /see which ones you do not really need/, make sure your information, contact, fallback, passwords, etc., are all robust.
And again, if you've got a lot of accounts, make a goal of addressing /some number/, say, five, each month, until you get them all.
Or 15, or 2. Just some n > 0.
Because /knowing where your data are/ is part of regaining control of it.
Q: Where do I even put my data?
A: You may begin to notice a pattern here: that's the point. It doesn't do any good to download data if you don't have a place to put it.
Do you even /have/ a back-up system or drive? If not, /get one/. (They're becoming insanely cheap: 2+ TB storage for $100 or so.)
But figure out: does this go on my desktop hard drive? Laptop? Do I get a home server and NAS system? (Sounds scary, but there are simple and capable systems.)
Do you need help getting all this stuff sorted out? Well, /find someone to help you with it/. (And, for myself: answering this question is something I'd like to put into an expanded form of this little Rantlet / toostorm).
What /is/ a reasonable way to store data? That fits your needs? Do you own your home? Live on the road? Move often? Are you homeless? What's a good option for any of those situations? *How do you minimise data loss risk?*
Q: So, what day should we all do this on?
A: It's kind of arbitrary, but I'm partial to the 11th, because reasons:
https://xkcd.com/1140/
It's somewhat underrepresented (for, as it turns out, typographical reasons), but should also not conflict a whole lot with other days.
Mind: this will float around days-of-the-week, so some months might work better for you than others, that's OK.
Q: O NOES I MISSED DATA LIBERATION THIS MONTH AMIGOINGTODIE?!!!!!!!!!!!
A: Take a deep breath.
Think of rain over a pond.
The goal isn't to be a slave to your habit, but to use a habit to gain mastery over yourself, and the things that matter to you.
If you're a day, or a week, late, and you get the chance, grab your data when you can. And if you miss a month, you've missed a month. Catch it on the next cycle.
Yes, you're taking a risk, but you're avoiding another.
Not backing up your data /at all/ is far more dangerous.
Q: What do I even do with my downloads / backups?
A: Do /something/ with it. Read through bits, review it, look for items to share.
Copy it to other machines or services.
Why?
*Because data live in use.* It's the stuff that's in cold storage that doesn't exist any more. And it's /not knowing how to read, or access, or re-distribute your data which will make it permanently lost.
Data are palimpsests.
#dataliberation
10/
A palimpsest was a piece of velum parchment that had been re-used. The old text was scraped from it, and a new text, copied by hand, written over it.
Mind, you lost the old text. But it was the re-writing and transfer of /another/ text that made it part of living memory. And I think is part of the process of a living /cultural/ memory.
Media changed with the printing press, and /perfect mechanical reproduction/ was possible. I think we've lost something in that.
#dataliberation
11/
Gained, absolutely, as well. But there's something in the practice of /repeating a text letter-by-letter, word-by-word/, that helps lodge it in your head.
(I do this a fair bit with electronic texts as I convert them between various formats. It's slow, but not entirely useless.)
Again, the point is to turn your static, siloed, archives into a /living record/ that you can work with.
#dataliberation
12/
Q: So, how do I specifically back up X?
A: A good question. One of the points of this exercise. And something I'm looking at developing in more depth.
There are a few methods I'm familiar with.
Mastodon can be backed up using @kensanata's "mastodon-backup" tool:
https://github.com/kensanata/mastodon-backup
Ello has a JSON-based profile archiver.
Google has the Data Liberation Project.
Reddit has ... some Python-based APIs I've not much worked with.
Other products I'm less sure of.
#dataliberation
13/
A few services and systems that come to mind:
#Facebook
#Twitter
#ProtonMail
#Skype
#WhatsApp
#LinkedIn
#Yahoo
Your mobile phone provider: contacts, voicemails, and other information.
Your mobile device and data.
Your bank or online bill-paying systems.
And I'm totally open to suggestions for others here, so please chime in.
#dataliberation
14/
Tsatnosk
@dredmorbius Twitter let's you download an archive:
https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-download-your-twitter-archive
This not only gives you all your tweets as JSON-files, there's also a builtin reader which include some basic statistics, such as how much you've posted each month.
@zatnosk Thanks much!
Q: Where should I keep my backups?
A: Another very good question, and much of this depends on what information security types call a "risk model".
In a nutshell: it depends on your circumstances and what concerns you have.
In some cases, your data /may/ actually be more secure with some online data providers than in your own possession.
If all your data are in your house or home, and anything happens (fire, flood, landslide, windstorm, theft) you are Having A Problem.
#dataliberation
15/
If you have specific potential threats -- an abusive partner or family member, neighbourhood or political violence, crime, civil unrest, untrustworthy legal system -- then data in your home or on your person may be at risk.
Encryption can address some of this, though with complications. That's another point I need to expand on.
Keeping copies of the data physically elsewhere can help.
Much personal data are fairly small. A single disk /can/ hold most or all you need.
#dataliberation
16/
Especially by way of writing. If a book takes 4 MB of space, then a 1 TB drive can hold a quarter million of them. That's a lot of Tweets.
Images, audio, video, and some forms of data can take more space, but you're still looking at a /lot/ of storage in a TB: 1,500 full CDs, 15,000 MP3s or OGGs. 500 full DVDs or so.
If physical size is a concern, fingernail-sized MicroSD flash drives are now at 2 TB capacity.
A deck-of-cards sized external drive is 16-48 TB.
#dataliberation
17/
And there are online services which will store many GB or TB of data for a modest monthly charge. So long as you're transporting a small amount to and from it, that is another option.
Though first you've got to see that you have the data to store there in the first place.
So Liberate Your Data!
#dataliberation
18/end/
@dredmorbius
I use backblaze's B2
Q: Why download your data?
A: Because it's /yours/. For access. For control. To be able to work with it locally, in ways that the present site doesn't allow for. So you don't lose it when the site goes titsup.com. So you can move it elsewhere if you choose.
Q: Why monthly?
A: A few reasons. To make a habit. To send a message to services, _especially_ if the day is coordinated. To test the process and see that it works. To develop the process.
#dataliberation
2/