If MoreThan Talk is going to being successful, we will need to help build trust into the social network. If users are going to be comfortable with sharing their personal data with the site and between fellow users, then we will have to work to develop trust. For Rousseau trust is a “psychological state comprising the intension to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behaviour of another”.(1) So if trust accepts vulnerability, there needs to be some strengthening of ties before a semblance of trust exists. Of course, in any population there will be those who exhibit more and less trust.
Luhnmann identifies that our modern society demonstrates a move from the traditional modes of trust that were built around families, and close communities towards a new arrangement of system based trust. This is where trust has to be explicitly developed through professional relationships and explicit understandings.
MoreThan talk will need to develop both levels of trust. The first is with the user. We will need to make explicit undertakings about how we will protect their privacy and take care of the personal data they shared on the system. In a post-Cambridge Analytics world, there needs to be explicit statements made about what is being done with personal data.
The other issue is to assist in the development of trust between users. If the basic premise of strangers from across the planet supporting one another by sharing knowledge is to be fruitful, the system must support the steady development of that trust between strangers. To this end, all but the most basic information (username and location) about a user is kept hidden and they control how and when it is shared. They will be asked to build a profile page and can invite other people to read it and message them. The key issues is the user remains in full control of sharing of the data. They only share what they want, with who they want, when they are ready.
Users don’t need to share personal e-mail accounts (if they don’t want to) as peer to peer messaging within the system is available.
(1) Rousseau et al. Not so different after all: a cross-discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review (1998) vol. 23 pp. 393-404
(2) Modern Societies: moving from Interpersonal Trust to System Trust (Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 1979
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