Friends Are Foe: The Risks of Social Networking

25/04/2010 Angela 20 comments

Facebook is known for its “privacy trainwrecks” (boyd, 2008) and has been criticised for its handling of these issues, often retreating until its users adjust to the changes brought upon them (Grimmelmann, 2009). However, there is more to look at when assessing privacy concerns around Facebook; to purely blame Facebook would be an exercise in technological determinism, instead there are societal and cultural values, political persuasions and economic motivations that shape the technology (Williams & Edge, 1996). As Clay Shirky has said, “[t]he human condition infects everything it touches” (1995, as cited in Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1206). It is the users who perpetrate the crimes of privacy on Facebook. This paper argues that users are not innocent bystanders, but rather active participants in privacy violations against one another. From the moment users begin to create their identity-image, through to when they rapidly multiply their audience by accepting acquaintances as Friends; they are setting themselves up for context collisions, which they will experience as privacy violations (Grimmelmann, 2009). “The privacy violations are bottom-up; they emerge spontaneously from the natural interactions of users with different tastes, goals, and expectations” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1188). Users and their Friends – motivated so strongly by their social tendencies – are their own greatest privacy foe.

Daniel Solove (2007) defines privacy as being a personal bubble that allows freedom and protects individuals from the “intrusiveness of others”; and that a “society without privacy protection would be suffocation, and it might not be a place in which most would want to live.” (p. 762). Social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook are “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.” (boyd & Ellison, 2007). SNSs by definition are constructed for users to share information. It is in the interest of its users to share as much information as possible – this is what offers them a rich user-experience. However, by disclosing private information into these public arenas, people risk bursting their personal bubble and violating their privacy.

Yet, if this is the case then why do people still insist on divulging so much personal information? The answer is multi-layered, and James Grimmelmann (2009) sums it best:

(…) people have social reasons to participate on social network sites, and these social motivations explain both why users value Facebook notwithstanding its well-known privacy risks and why they systematically underestimate those risks. Facebook provides users with a forum in which they can craft social identities, forge reciprocal relationships, and accumulate social capital. These are important, even primal, human desires, whose immediacy can trigger systematic biases in the mechanisms that people use to evaluate privacy risks […] Facebook scratches its users’ social itches. Each drives users to release personal information; each depends on the personal information of other users. (p. 1151)

The strong motivating forces that drive users to participate in SNSs are the social factors of identity, relationship, and community. These social urges “can’t be satisfied under conditions of complete secrecy” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1159). Users’ identity and taste performances need an audience; relationships need friends and family; and community is not a private realm but rather depends on a public setting (Grimmelmann, 2009). Each of these social desires act as motivating forces to encourage Facebook users to disclose personal information.

Identity begins when Facebook users create their online profile. Creating their profile is in essence “typ[ing] oneself into being” (Sundén, as cited in boyd & Ellison, 2007). Facebook is the perfect forum for users to assert their identity and is done to persuade others of who they say they are (Grimmelmann, 2009). Crafting their profile is an exercise in “impression management” (Goffman, as cited in Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1152) as well as “taste performance” (Liu, 2007). The act of listing their tastes – from music to movies – although it may seem prosaic is in fact a performance of “prestige, differentiation, authenticity and theatrical persona” (Liu, 2007). Liu continues, “taste statements need to be crafted so as to stand up to the scrutiny of an audience that is able to ‘glean unofficially by close observation’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 144)” (as cited in Liu, 2007).

Relationships are another motivating factor that come into play through the act of sharing information. When users share information with friends and family, they are publicly displaying their intimacy (Grimmelmann, 2009). Friending someone is a signal to all of your relationship (Grimmelmann, 2009). Facebook sets up the dynamic of reciprocity that is vital in human relationships: applications such as Gifts or even a Wall post elicits a need for them to show they care by reciprocating the gesture (Grimmelmann, 2009).

The final motivating social force is community. By users making their connections visible they are displaying their social context and, thus, where they fit within it (Grimmelmann, 2009), and providing revelations as to who they are (boyd, 2006). Their Friend-list is a visual cue of their social capital (Grimmelmann, 2009), and the cooler their Friends are, the cooler they look (boyd, 2006).

As each of these factors – identity, relationships, and community – has shown, these are deep-seated social urges that go to the very core of human desires and needs, and can be easily sated by partaking fully in the whole SNS experience. The price to pay for this is to risk their privacy, yet this seems a small price many users are willing to pay (Grimmelmann, 2009).

When evaluating the privacy risks of Facebook, users rely on cultural cues instead of the facts (Kahan et al, as cited in Grimmelmann, 2009). Facebook sets up social dynamics that make users feel secure, after all, the SNS is a place for socializing, as such they are designed to feel intimate and reassuring (Grimmelmann, 2009); but it is also the users who over-simplify the situation when evaluating the risks (Grimmelmann, 2009). Users incorrectly rely on social adages. For example, users may justify to themselves that “if everyone else is doing it, then I’ll do it too… over 400 million users can’t be wrong!” or users may feel they have safety in numbers: “surely I can’t be singled out in this crowd?” (Grimmelmann, 2009).

Another way users may not appropriately evaluate the risks is because they are not adept at interacting in an online environment. In face-to-face interactions people give physical signals; for example, leaning in close suggests one is revealing a secret. However, in online interactions one loses these nuances and as such the conversation is not understood as being confidential in nature (Grimmelmann, 2009). This results in a user unintentionally divulging their friend’s sensitive information.

Just as each of these risk evaluations have been a product of social factors, so too are the privacy harms, categorized by Grimmelmann (2009) as disclosure, surveillance, instability, disagreement, spillovers, and denigration. These social dynamics cause privacy violations, and each is brought about by peer-to-peer interactions: “[u]sers’ privacy is harmed when other users learn sensitive personal information about them. Facebook enters the picture as a catalyst; it enables privacy violations more often than it perpetrates them” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1164). The privacy harms that support the argument will be explored in further detail.

Disclosure can be defined as when a user inadvertently gives away information to the unintended audience. An example of this is the story of Marc Chiles, a University of Illinois student, who in 2006 after a night out partying was seen urinating in public by a police officer. Before the police officer could get to him to take his name, Marc managed to escape; however, the officer questioned another student at the scene – Adam Gartner. Adam said he did not know the offender. Later the police officer checked Facebook and saw that Adam was indeed a friend of Marc, resulting in a ticket for them both (Grimmelmann, 2009). Adam and Marc were victims of disclosure: something they were happy to share in the context of Facebook was not something they wanted law enforcement to know. SNSs are rife with unwanted disclosures; these disclosures threaten a user’s identity and community (Grimmelmann, 2009).

Surveillance can be defined as when one is anxious of being watched and as a result inhibits or self-censors themselves (Solove, as cited by Grimmelmann, 2009). Facebook users are aware they can be watched online, from teachers and parents through to lawyers and the police force (Grimmelmann, 2009). Furthermore, any information that is posted to Facebook on a public profile is considered electronic evidence, meaning that as long as it can be verified as to what it says and who said it, then it is admissible in court (Jaksic, 2007). Users fashion their profile to be read by close friends in a social context; if you remove this context, users feel this is the unintended audience and therefore an invasion of privacy. The act of self-censoring alters one’s identity performance thus compromising one’s identity-image and relationships (Grimmelmann, 2009).

Another example of surveillance was seen with the rollout of News Feed. According to Nissenbaum, privacy is contextual integrity (as cited in Grimmelmann, 2009). The architecture of a site creates a social context that has a clearly defined “norms of flow” (Nissenbaum, as cited in Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1169); News Feed disrupted the flow of information. The information had always been accessible, previously users could have snooped to find the information, but now instead it was broadcast to their Friend-list (boyd, 2008). This shifted the focus towards a surveillance psychology – all their actions were now exposed and monitored by their Friends, leaving users feeling “icky” (boyd, 2008, p. 14). This change is socially different to its previous structure and it carries different privacy values, thereby disrupting relationships (Grimmelmann, 2009), and is experienced as a violation of privacy.

Disagreement causes a privacy threat when two people have different ideas, with the misunderstanding costing one of them their privacy. For example, if a user has a compromising photo of their friend boozing on the weekend, although this friend may not want it shown, the user has control – they can upload it and tag it without the consent of their friend (Grimmelmann, 2009). By uploading it the user has an identity assertion to gain, “look my friends are cool, thus so am I”. However, for the friend in the photo left feeling betrayed by its disclosure to a wide audience, has had their privacy invaded.

Privacy leaks on SNSs are often due to the actions of others, this is known as spillovers, such as the previous example of a user uploading an embarrassing photo of a friend. A SNS by definition is designed to extend one’s social network. The result of this is that a user’s Friend-list ends up including acquaintances, each of which are less likely to know that user’s privacy expectations, thereby increasing their risk of a privacy leak (Grimmelmann, 2009). After all, a “’friend of a friend of a friend’ is pronounced ‘stranger’” (Shirky, as cited in Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1174).

What helps increase the risk of spillovers is the dynamic of a SNS – as the network grows, where people are naturally inclined to add more and more people to their Friend-list, it’s also hard to ignore or reject friend requests; it’s easier to just accept them as a Friend (Grimmelmann, 2009). This leads to an increased number of weak ties on your Friend-list. As sociologists have illustrated, weak ties are important to growing one’s opportunities in their network, however with these weak ties come security risks, as one is then relying on these weak ties to be discreet with one’s privacy (Grimmelmann, 2009).

The “Dunbar number” suggests that the human brain can only know a limited number of people closely (Thompson, 2008), yet users’ Friend-lists can far exceed this number. Thus, users are lulled into thinking they are speaking to an audience of close friends who know them well; however “[e]veryone else isn’t a close friend, and the socially thick sense of mutual personal obligation that keeps confidences confidential doesn’t always operate as strongly as we expect” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1163).

What each of these harms demonstrates is that Facebook is a catalyst for “social convergence” (boyd, 2008). Users tailor and self-censor themselves depending on the social context they find themselves in: the way they present to their boss is different to that of their best friend. It is not appropriate to mix these self-presentations to these separate audiences. However on Facebook, users have to present themselves to multiple audiences all at once, which is not easy to do (Grimmelmann, 2009).

The paradox of Facebook is that the same mechanisms that help it create new social contexts also help it juxtapose them. It offers social differentiation but delivers convergence—which its users experience as a violation of privacy. (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1177-1178)

It is these spillovers from our carefully crafted identity-images as well as the fallout from context collisions that users interpret as privacy violations.

Another area where users should be more proactive with their privacy is by reading the privacy policy. Few people read the fine print as was recently demonstrated by gaming retailer GameStation: as an April Fool’s Day prank the company inserted an “immortal soul clause” into their terms of sale, with the result that 7,500 people agreed to sell their souls, thereby suggesting that “as many as 88 percent of people do not read the terms and conditions of a Web site” (“7,500 Online”, 2010).

Grimmelmann (2009) says of Facebook’s privacy policy that users “don’t read it, don’t understand it, don’t rely on it and certainly aren’t protected by it” (p. 1181). He goes on to discuss polls on people’s understanding of privacy policies: in 2001 only three percent of those polled said they “read privacy policies carefully ‘most of the time’” (p. 1182) and a survey of Facebook users in 2006 discovered that seventy-seven percent had never read the policy, and furthermore most users had “mistaken beliefs about how Facebook collected and shared personal information” (p. 1182). If users took more of an interest in the privacy policy of Facebook, they would be better prepared to handle its flaws, and perhaps even negotiate a more appropriate policy for all.

To think of Facebook as being solely responsible for privacy infringements is a simplistic view. Critics look at Facebook’s privacy leaks as being caused by weak privacy technical controls; however surveys have shown that users care little or do not know how to use Facebook’s privacy controls, with one study in 2008 finding half of SNS users leave these privacy controls on default (UK Office of Communications, as cited in Grimmelmann, 2009). More complex privacy settings are not the answer. After all, SNSs are designed to share information: “anything that makes it harder for [the user] to share is a bug, not a feature. Users will disable any feature that protects their privacy too much” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1187). This suggests that users have a role to play in protecting themselves from privacy risks.

Therefore, instead of purely blaming Facebook, we need to address the users’ role. “It’s their decisions to upload information about themselves that set the trouble in motion. The smaller we can make the gap between the privacy they expect and the privacy they get, the fewer bad calls they’ll make” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1195). Users driven by the strong social urges of identity, relationships, and community risk their privacy and the privacy of others (Grimmelmann, 2009). That is, through their desire to create an identity-image they divulge personal information; through their desire to socialize they accept strangers into their inner circle; and through their desire to build relationships they not only share their personal information but also that of their Friends – thus compromising their privacy, as well as that of their Friends. Users experience the resulting convergence and spillovers as violations to their privacy (Grimmelmann, 2009). By educating users of the consequences of their actions, we can empower them to better protect themselves for the privacy risks associated with sharing information in a public setting. But in the meantime, users need to bear in mind that on Facebook, Friends are foe.

References

7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls. (2010, April 15). FOXNews.com. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/15/online-shoppers-unknowingly-sold-souls/

boyd, d. (2006). Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community into Being on Social Network Sites. First Monday 11(12). Retrieved March 2, 2010, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1418/1336

boyd, d. (2008). Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence. Convergence 14(1), 13-20.

boyd, d. (2008b). Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved March 2, 2010, from http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf

boyd, d., & Ellison, N. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1). Retrieved March 2, 2010, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

Facebook.com. (2010). Press Room. Retrieved March 29, 2010, from http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Grimmelmann, J. (2009). Saving Facebook. Iowa Law Review, 94, 1137-1206. Retrieved March 29, 2010, from http://works.bepress.com/james_grimmelmann/20

Jaksic, V. (2007, October 15). Finding Treasures for Cases on Facebook: More and more, lawyers are using social networking sites as litigation tools. Law Technology News. Retrieved March 29, 2010, from http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=900005493439

Liu, H. (2007). Social Network Profiles as Taste Performances. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1). Retrieved March 2, 2010, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/liu.html.

Solove, D. (2007). ‘I’ve Got Nothing to Hide’ and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. San Diego Law Review 44(745). Retrieved March 29, 2010, from http://ssrn.com/abstract=998565

Thompson, C. (2008, September 7). Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. The New York Times. Retrieved March 2, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html?_r=1

Williams, R., & Edge, R. (1996). What is the Social Shaping of Technology? Research Policy, 25, 856-899. Retrieved March 29, 2010, from http://www.rcss.ed.ac.uk/technology/SSTRP.html

Friends Are Foe: The Risks of Social Networking by Angela Fitzhenry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Social Networks community, Facebook, friends, identity, Identity Management, Privacy, social networking sites

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Comments

Written by Angela F about 2 years ago.

Thank you for the kind comments Ted. And thanks for the link too!

I really enjoyed reading danah boyd’s paper. A few points: where danah says that “privacy is about maintaining a sense of control”. Also to not assume that everyone wants to be public: with some people having very serious reasons to avoid being public, such as the mother and child hiding from an abusive partner. Realising that there will be some people that will never be able to embrace and move with the technology that drives the world around them… and what this means for them. It can further marginalise the marginalised.

Thanks again for the link.
Ange
Written by Angela F about 2 years ago.

Thanks for your comments Vicky
Written by Angela F about 2 years ago.

Hi Liz,

Thank you for your comments.

Great question! In honesty I don’t know what it will take for users to tighten their privacy security. Perhaps experiencing first-hand (or through a friend) the repercussions of a lax approach to privacy. There needs to be more conversation around privacy; educating people of the risks – Grimmelmann terms this user-driven education. The mainstream media does seem to cover Facebook spillover stories, such as someone being fired for their status updating declaring they’re chucking a sickie; however, it would be interesting to see if research shows these stories help bring awareness to the risks.

From reading Grimmelmann’s paper I agree that the law has a role to play. Grimmelmann (2009) suggests that the focus should be on the users because it’s “their decisions to upload information about themselves that set the trouble in motion. The smaller we can make the gap between the privacy they expect and the privacy they get, the fewer bad calls they’ll make” (p. 1195). He believes the law might help in a couple of ways, such as its ability to strengthen public disclosure torts as well as in giving people the right of opt-in and not just opt-out of Facebook features; furthermore non-users should have the ability to opt-out completely.

In the area of public disclosure, if a user sets their technical controls for privacy, doing so means they have expectations as to what will be held private – thus the law should be able to protect them by ensuring a search warrant is needed to gain any of this information. (If however a Friend of theirs discloses the information to the police or if the police are able to find information on their public profile (such as the incident with Marc Chiles mentioned in my paper, then they unfortunately have “no Fourth Amendment grounds for complaint” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1197). People need to be more aware of the dichotomy of public vs private.)

Ange
Written by MilanaK about 2 years ago.

Hi Ange

That wouldn’t surprise me at all. Its quite disturbing I have to say. I don’t know why people feel the need to exploit themselves in such a way.

Good luck
Milana
Written by Angela F about 2 years ago.

Hi Tom,

Excellent comments. It does seem as if you can’t protect people from themselves. Facebook is such a “socially compelling tool” that people merrily “expose their personal information to the world” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1140), not thinking through the volume of private information they are disclosing. Most users’ profiles share: “religious affiliation, sexual orientation, group memberships, events attended” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1151) — this is sensitive information which the law treats “as personal, and [the law] bars attempts to discover or disclose them” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1151).

I agree that even those that don’t have a Facebook account are having their privacy violated. Quite a few of my friends aren’t on Facebook and often voice their concern when they hear there is a new photo of them on there. So you are right, “[e]ven if a person chooses not to participate, they still run the same privacy risks through their friends” (TomEvans, 2010) – emphasising the latter part of your sentence – “through their friends” – as it supports my argument that our friends play a role in privacy violations against us. Facebook acts as the catalyst.

I agree that protecting the privacy of those non-users is “worthy of further consideration” (TomEvans, 2010). Facebook has a pivotal and crucial role to play in addressing these threats. In the meantime I feel we should be educating one another of the risks and putting our own preventative measures – the things we do have control over – in place. For example, with my friends who aren’t on Facebook, I choose not to upload photos of them; and I even ask those that are on Facebook if it’s okay for me to post a picture of them (especially if it’s a photo including their children). It may not seem like much, but at least I am seeking someone’s consent, rather than just ticking a box saying that I do.

Ange

———————————
Grimmelmann, J. (2009). saving Facebook. Iowa Law Review, 94, 1137-1206.
Written by Angela F about 2 years ago.

Hi Jhi,

Yes it is great to get both sides of the coin. I really enjoyed reading your paper and have posted some comments.

Ange
Written by Angela F about 2 years ago.

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your comments.

Yes it is interesting how people don’t think through the consequences of their disclosure. Yesterday I saw someone’s Facebook status update was basically admitting to breaking the law; it went along the lines of: “can’t wait to get home – 130km/h – hope there aren’t any speed cameras between Canberra and Sydney!!!”.

Ange
Written by Angela F about 2 years ago.

Hi Janette,

I agree that we should act to educate those who are unaware – young people in particular.

Thanks you for your comments

Ange
Written by Angela F about 2 years ago.

Hi Milana,

Re your statement that there are inappropriate photos uploaded to Facebook: I read somewhere (I tried to do a search to recall the article, but with no success) that on the occasions when Facebook is down there is a marked increase in traffic to porn sites. This could suggest a number of things; one might be that people have enough to look at on Facebook (such as the raunchy photos you mentioned) to keep them occupied that they don’t need to look elsewhere. Or perhaps just the voyeurism of looking at their friends’ photos is enough?

Thank you for your comments. All the best for your assignment 2 and 3.

Ange
Written by ted mitew about 2 years ago.

Hi Angela, this is a very well written paper. I particularly enjoyed the point you make about identity spill-overs between different contexts. This argument suggests that privacy is an emergent quality of situational contexts, something danah boyd has been forcefully arguing for recently [for example here http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2010/SXSW2010.html.

Cheers
Ted
Written by JoG about 2 years ago.

Hi Angela,

I liked the way that you brought together areas of identity, relationships and community and the tension between the need for social belonging (“see how many friends I have”) and the need for identity management and for privacy (“no, mum that wasn’t me at that party”). I agree that it is not only the network provider’s responsibility to provide tools to manage privacy, but also the users to be aware of the limits to privacy and to be cautious about whom they select as friends.

As you mentioned, education will be one way of helping users to become more aware of the consequences of their actions on SNSs. I also think that as people grow up with these sites and continue to see the consequences of their actions that they will be able to pass these stories on to younger generations and help safer SNS use to be encultured into future generations (that is if SNS are still in the same form by that time). Do you think that they current privacy concerns expressed in your paper will be as relevant in generations to come?

Cheers,
Jo
Written by lpower about 2 years ago.

Hi Angela,

Well written paper. I agree it is the user’s responsibility to protect themselves from social networking sites however, as you identify, users seem willing to risk their privacy to be social.
Is it just because “everyone else is doing it so it can’t be so bad?”

What do you think it will take for users to cull their “friends” and tighten security on their Facebook accounts?

Liz
Written by VickyK about 2 years ago.

Hi Angela,

Well written paper and you argue your points well with well researched references.

It is hard to believe how many people turn a blind eye to privacy issues when it comes to Facebook. I believe the ‘safety in numbers’ aspect has a big part to play, and also for general ignorance and naivety. People do not believe they could or would be targeted or exposed in a negative way as the actual use of Facebook seems so ‘fun’ and harmless.

I particularly like the statement “’a ‘friend of a friend of a friend’ is pronounced ‘stranger’” – this is so true, yet when it comes to Facebook, the lines are so blurred between ‘Friends’ that people forget the potential reach of their broadcasts, and the possible ramifications of too much disclosure.

Great work!

All the best,
Vicky
Written by TomEvans about 2 years ago.

Hi Angela,

Thanks for a very well written and researched paper. You have covered the risks around privacy thoroughly and talked about the need for users to be educated about privacy settings and to practice discipline about what they disclose about themselves, but I think Facebook is a medium which ultimately cannot be controlled. For instance, even if a person chooses not to have a Facebook account is no guarantee that they will avoid having compromising and embarrassing photos, videos or comments posted about them on other people’s walls. This is an extension of the spill over effect that you talk about. Even if a person chooses not to participate, they still run the same privacy risks through their friends, with the added risk that they may never know that embarrassing material has been posted about them because without a Facebook account there is no ‘newsfeed’ to that person. This is an important issue that is worthy of further consideration and research. It has huge implications for not just for the rights to privacy but also in regards to defamation and libel action.

It is curious that in an era that has brought in strict privacy laws about how the personal information of individuals can be collected, stored and used (only with the express consent of the person) in order to protect individual privacy, we should see sitting alongside this, a social networking platform that encourages people to share the most intimate information about themselves with just about anyone. It seems that you just can’t protect people from themselves.

“Privacy Act 1988” http://www.privacy.gov.au/law
Written by jhiroberts about 2 years ago.

Hi Angela,

I really enjoyed reading your paper, It is well written and researched. The style of the paper made me want to think about your conclusion more.

I found it very interesting that we used the same example about the guy who was seen urinating, and got caught by being a witnesses friend on Facebook. My conclusion was somewhat different to yours

In My paper yes I do bash Facebook with their many privacy issues. Its not that I don’t use Facebook, i use it quite alot. However I personally think that Facebook does have a large part to play, as they are the ones who control the information contained within there servers. Sure this information has been added by its users and yes they have accepted the Facebook TOS. I think the one place where Facebook really lacks is member education, they should have a quick 1-2 minute course that every member should go through to highlight how to use the Facebook privacy settings.

Its good to get both sides of the coin.

Again great paper.

Cheers

Jhi

http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/facebook-and-the-demise-of-individual-privacy-%E2%80%93-a-flawed-assumption-or-serial-disregard/
Written by Michael N about 2 years ago.

An outstanding paper and arguement Ange, I really think you argued well the user’s responsiblity in the process of information disclosure. I feel that people, not all, do not understand the possibilities of too much disclosure. I also agree with the statements that there is this need to share and disclose, that’s natural I have it too. We need that contact but more seem to be assuming Facebook and other SNS equal relationships that are meaningful. That is not to say they may not be, lots of papers in the conference have argued well the benefits. But my impression is it has opened up the beliefs tht it is real. When privacy is violated it tests a friendship, but often it is far easier regardless of where the friend lives to freeze them out and block them, never discussing or saying sorry. This creates a culture of the other person being viewed as insignificant.

Also it is interesting the case of the guy who was found out by the Police through the friend having the other friend on Facebook. Again, another example of consequences not throught through. Very good paper Ange.
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

How typical that Facebook retreats while users adjust – how often does that happen is so many situations.

Interesting how Grimmelmann outlines why members social needs of identity, relationship and community are satisfied by disclosing personal information via SNS and scary how we systematically underestimate security risks in disclosing personal information online. Whole new slant of FB as a catalyst enabling privacy violations.

I agree with your conclusion that users need to be educated how to protect their privacy and that users should work with the SNS administrators/builders to create a more secure system. We should act to protect those who are unaware. parents and teachers could do much in educating the young and the media could do more to inform

I have put reading Grimmelmann on my to do list.

As an aside – i understand that libel laws apply for online actions the same as in the physical world .. talked about after the twitter slurs of the logies. It would be interesting to investigate the law and disclosure on FB.
Written by Angela F about 2 years ago.

Thank you for your comments Josh.

Your point about our creating and maintaining multiple representations of Self as a way to avoid context collisions as well as a way to protect our privacy is interesting. I agree that it is possible to create multiple representations as this is what we do everyday when navigating different contexts – we perform a different facet of ourselves to different audiences (Goffman, as cited in Grimmelmann, 2009) – how I present myself to a close friend is not the same as how I present myself to my employer. However, I don’t know how successful we can be at doing this online when presented with so many contexts at once. For example, our Friend-list comprises of a mish-mash of close mates, extended family, acquaintances, past colleagues and our current employer: if I wanted to post a status update about my reckless weekend exploits, then knowing of my multiple-audience, I’d carefully choose my words, walking the line between letting my close friends know my shenanigans but at the same time not divulging inappropriate material to my boss. The result of this is just a watered-down status post – I haven’t been able to just ‘be myself’. Worse still, I could just decide not to post any status update, thus totally censoring myself, removing myself entirely from a possible conversation, thus defeating the point of an SNS which is to socialise (Grimmelmann, 2009). These outcomes can be seen as managing my multiple representations, but is it rather a compromise of my Self? Maintaining multiple representations comes at the price of abandoning oneself to being one’s Self.

Furthermore, creating and maintaining multiple representations of Self can only take us so far in avoiding context collisions. As my paper argues, our privacy risks lay not only in our hands but also in the hands of others: even if we were to successfully manage our multiple identities, the biggest instigator of context collisions are our Friends. Continuing with the example I gave above, after all of the effort you’ve taken to self-censor your status post, your Friend will upload and tag a photo of you or write on your wall, blatantly exposing that which you wanted to hide… KA-BOOM context collision. No matter how successful you are at creating and maintaining multiple identities, nothing can protect you from the actions of your Friends. It is these context collisions and spillovers that we experience as privacy threats (Grimmelmann, 2009).

On your question as to whether I think the personal benefits outweigh the privacy issues: I believe they do. As I discuss in my paper, SNSs have strong motivating forces that drive people to participate. “Facebook provides users with a forum in which they can craft social identities, forge reciprocal relationships, and accumulate social capital” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1151); these core human needs “can’t be satisfied under conditions of complete secrecy. Identity performance requires an audience; relationships are impossible without others; community is a public” (Grimmelmann, 2009, p. 1159-1160). As you point out, there are a large number of users on these sites. I think this demonstrates that for most people the benefits must outweigh their perceived risks of privacy threats.

Thank you for the link to your paper – I look forward to reading it and hope to have some stimulating comments for you.

Ange
Written by MilanaK about 2 years ago.

Hi Angela

I really enjoyed reading your paper and I totally agree with your view. Facebook is not something that has to be done. It is a personal choice whether to join or not and what sort of information to provide to people. I’ve been able to view other people’s pictures even though they were not my friend and I could not view any form of information before becoming their friend. The way I did it is by clicking on a picture that one of my friends commented on. Also I have seen some very explicit, vulgar and inappropriate (in my view) pictures of mostly young women. We have heard many times that porn companies use people’s pictures in their material without that person even knowing about it. And even though this might be illegal, those sort of pictures should not be on there in the first place, so to blame Facebook would be unfair.

I also remember a story where a person lost their job because they took a sick day but the boss found out on their Facebook page that they took the day off to go to an event (can’t remember specifically what event it was). In my view, if you want to keep something private, why go so public. I mean with millions and millions of social networking site users I can’t comprehend why people would think they can keep information private amongst so many users.

Well done Angela. Very well done.

Milana

My paper focuses on people having more friends but less (emotional) friendships since the rise in online socialising. If this interests you, you can find my paper here
http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/how-many-friends-do-you-have/
Written by Josh v about 2 years ago.

Great Paper Angela –

I have to admit that I have stopped communicating with both “friends” and “foes” via facebook of late, mostly because of the issues you have written about…

I feel that negotiating privacy issues across SNS’s forces us to create multiple identities as a way to avoid these “context collisions” and “privacy violations” that you describe. By creating and maintaining multiple representaions of the self I think we can navigate the mish mash of social contexts that we encounter across SNS’s.

“We can understand our online identities ‘as multiple and fragmented, or as a society of selves’ (Turkle, S. 1997) which let us control and protect both our identity and our privacy.” (Taken from my paper – Cut and Paste Identities: Creating our own Realities Online)

Using these tools for social interaction also takes a lot of personal energy and time (negotiating privacy and social context; reading the terms and conditions, etc… -: ), yet for maintaining large, diverse and global networks they can be positive social tools.

“They are not only ‘sources of emotional and financial support and of information about jobs, other people, and the world at large’ (Donath, J., & boyd, d. 2004), they also give users the ability to control identity and social interactions.” (Taken from my paper – Cut and Paste Identities: Creating our own Realities Online)

Do you think that the personal benefits gained through large and diverse online social networks outweigh any privacy issues? The numbers of users on these sites seem to suggest so…

Thanks Angela, I enjoyed your paper.

Josh v

http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/cut-and-paste-identities-creating-our-own-realities-online/

: )

Comment Pages:

Online Conference on Networks and Communities

Friends Are Foe: The Risks of Social Networking

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