Block Party, a startup created by software engineer and tech diversity advocate Tracy Chow, was one of the victims of Twitter's (now Company X) API changes earlier this year, forcing it to pivot its business. I was forced to. At this weekend's SXSW conference in Austin, Chou announced a new product, Privacy Party, designed to help people more easily navigate and adjust their privacy settings across social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. A glimpse of what Block Party is currently working on. , Reddit, X, etc.
The original version of Block Party was built on top of Twitter's API to automate the process of blocking malicious actors, trolls, harassers, and more. The company raised $4.8 million in seed funding in 2022, a year after launch, with the goal of expanding automated blocking to more platforms.
However, Twitter's API crackdown immediately impacted Block Party's ability to operate. That product is currently on hiatus, but has since been rebranded to Block Party Classic.
Chou noted the product's demise at SXSW, noting that Block Party Classic will allow Twitter users to filter “all the spam and harassment from mentions,” and that even if it's not a complete content management solution, it will make Twitter more She said it was easier and more comfortable to use (because the content itself remained on Twitter's platform.) Instead, she said, it functioned more like middleware.
“Unfortunately, due to a change in Twitter ownership, we no longer have access to the API,” Chou explained.
“Regulations requiring open APIs allow us to take back APIs without being subject to the whims of volatile owners or changing business trends and priorities. “It will open up the market and consumer choice for social media experiences across platforms,” she added.
Due to the uncertain future of API regulations, the company is focusing on the future development of Privacy Party.
Chou said the idea for the new product came from discussions with newsroom security teams who needed more tools to help journalists stay safe online.
“In addition to facing a lot of harassment, journalists sometimes face personal information disclosure, stalking, [and] Death threat. “Personal social media creates a lot of surface area of vulnerability, so the security recommendation is always to lock things down,” she said.
Others may simply want to clean up their social profiles to prevent old photos and posts from coming back to haunt them or from a different era. For example, photos from your college party probably shouldn't be shown to potential employers.
However, configuring security settings on different platforms is time-consuming, tedious, and complex. Platforms can make users' interfaces and experiences unwieldy or change their settings locations frequently to prevent users from locking down valuable data or to appease regulators. It happens often.
Privacy parties also act like middleware here, allowing users to interact with platforms and services and adjust their privacy settings with fewer clicks.
In one example demoed at SXSW, Deonne Castaneda, head of product design at Block Party, explained that it took at least six clicks on Facebook to find the setting to make one photo album private. .
“It was clear that there was an unmet privacy need for this type of photo management and protection that saves time and effort,” she said.
The way the privacy policy works is to provide users with recommendations for different social media platforms.
In beta, the browser extension will customize recommendations based on your current settings. The extension navigates through Facebook or other social apps and learns your settings with scans that run in the background. Keep the browser tab open until the scan is complete and you will receive an alert once the scan is complete. (In some cases, scanning may be paused due to 2FA needs.) You can then review settings such as the content being tagged and the publicity of the photo or post, and change the settings to be more secure or skip them if necessary.
This extension lets you know who can contact you, who can see your activity, which apps can access your data, who can see personal information like your location and hometown, and old content. It also focuses on other areas that may enable malicious actors and stalkers, such as what the who can use it etc. When you make changes, the Privacy Policy extension updates your settings on your behalf. It's like having a privacy expert walk you through different settings and give you feedback on what you need to change and why.
The Privacy Policy Beta works with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, Strava, X, and Venmo, and scans can take as little as 1 minute or up to 8 minutes, depending on how many settings you need to lock down. . The browser extension is free to use while in beta.
Image credit: Block Party
“Each recommendation provides transparency into what is happening to the data and the potential trade-offs involved,” Castaneda said. “It also shows you the controls you have, including an additional level of control that automates finding and correcting your privacy settings.”
Chou did not say when Privacy Party will leave beta, but for now it will be free to use.