Mark Cuban Says we need to delete our Social Media, No Thanks

Mark Cuban has a big beef with how much information is in social media about people. In this video he talks about two of his current software companies that deal with the "biggest mistake" people are making online, not managing your data online. But is this really a Problem, I think not.

The two companies are Xpire and Cyber Dust - overviews are at the end

From a story at LaunchDfw.com about Xpire “Mark Cuban (Dallas entrepreneur and Shark Tank celebrity) is especially passionate about the idea of controlling your digital footprint. When UNT computer science student, Jesse Stauffer, reached out to Cuban about his idea for an app that would limit the permanence of your social media posts, he didn’t expect a response.

But he did hear back from Cuban, and from there they started the discussion about making the app a reality.”

Mr. Cuban states that texts and tweets stay out there forever and will be used against us. He goes on to say, they (not sure who but someone) will use this to make parallels to your psychological profile and that of criminals in order to incriminate you. But wait, the data could just as easily be used to vindicate you if it were available.

Mark is correct that your social media contributions can be used as a profiling tool and it is no different than a credit history. There have been instances where credit history has been used against individuals but this is the minority compared to those it has helped. Several times my credit history has allowed creditors to detect unusual activity that ended up being fraudulent and prevent it. I don't see much of difference between your social media history and your credit history. If that is the case then your social media data needs to monitored and curated but not necessarily mass deleted.

Could the world evolve into the dystopian civilization Mark Cuban describes? It could but history is full of people saying that the future is dark but seldom has it materialized.

The main steps you need to take today is to determine who has access to your information and then determine whose access needs to be removed. And as always think before you post. Ask yourself, does this rant really need to be shared?

As to the software, Cyber Dust allows you to communicate freely and honestly. Send and receive text messages, stickers, links, photos, videos and more. Your messages are protected from screenshots and disappear after they are read. They are heavily encrypted and never touch a hard drive- not even our own. Once your messages are gone they are truly gone forever never to be recovered. On the surface the software’s privacy features look very appealing but the real lure for a messaging software is useability. How easy is it to send, reply, manage, and navigate group messages will be the real test. Oddly, the software talks about permanent deletion of messages because they do not touch any other hard drives, but what about the other side of the conversation. That is the message you really want deleted.

The Xpire app integrates with Twitter (and with Facebook here shortly), and will remove your old tweets. The app also allows you to store ALL of your future tweets, and will set a timer for your tweets, giving you control over how long you want your rant about Jay Cutler ruining your fantasy team again stay public. Take it from a person with a background in data governance, while nice in theory the extra work required ends up being too much. To determine the right length of time to keep an items takes only one click, it also takes a considerable amount of logical reasoning and brain power for a person to classify an item. People find the thought required too cumbersome and usually skip it or pick a default.

Xpire does have two features I can’t wait to test out. Storyline is a feature for managing data to get to a “Social Media Zero” state. Since I am a big fan of Mailbox’s “inbox zero” this really appeals to me. Smart Algorithms is a way to calculate your Social Score to discover how much potentially risky content you share online. This fits right in with the work we are completing for PR HealthScore about how a company’s social media and PR in general compares to their competition.