Facebook celebrated it’s 10th anniversary yesterday and to say that the site has taken the world by storm is an understatement. As of May 2012, there were one billion active users on Facebook and eight out of every 10 users lives outside the of U.S. and Canada (Bertolucci, 2012). There have been books, pop culture references in TV shows and even a Hollywood major motion picture about the site, demonstrating just how prolific this social phenomenon has become. In particular, Facebook has had huge social impact, as well as powerful economic impact in today’s knowledge economy. Socially, Facebook has changed the way we think about sharing and interacting with individuals in a virtual format, as well as the routine and ritualized behaviours adopted by users, some of whom check Facebook multiple times every day (or every hour!). Economically, the new, real-time data collection and data mining capabilities for marketing and advertising has forever changed how companies learn about and target their ideal customers.
But all of this technological advancement comes with inherent risks; privacy concerns, in particular. In 2010, Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook’s co-founder, stated that privacy “is no longer a social norm” (Weinstock, 2010). But how can this be true? Has society gone from respecting privacy pre-Facebook, to giving up privacy in order to gain access to the online social world in just a few short years?
In my opinion, the short answer is: no.
Although Facebook has fundamentally changed how millions of users share information on the web, I believe that Facebook has caused only a temporary shift in societal views on privacy. Although Facebook users can have differing opinions regarding the amount of privacy they expect (and accept) online, all users still want the ability to control their information, demonstrating a common, universal belief that remains constant.
In a longitudinal panel of 5,076 Facebook users, there is quantitative evidence to support that as time passed, users demonstrated an increase in the desire for privacy, such as limited publicly-accessible data and personal information (Acquist et al., 2012). Users decreased their public disclosure on Facebook between 2005 and 2009, including increasing privacy settings and/or reducing and deleting their personal content on the site. The authors of this study likened users’ decreased public disclosure to an increased awareness of privacy risks related to online social networking, as well as an increased awareness of how to use the privacy tools available to them on Facebook.
Users have already demanded, and will continue to demand, increased control over their information. In 2006, when Facebook introduced the “News Feed” concept, many users were outraged that they could not control the information that would be broadcast, prompting the 700,000 member group called “Students Against Facebook News Feed” (Debatin et al., 2009). Facebook’s actions to privacy concerns are primarily reactive in nature, likely because hosting so many users, in so many different countries is uncharted territory any Internet site.
In 2009, Facebook decided to ask it’s users about their views on their privacy policies. This demonstrates Facebook’s understanding that users desire control over their privacy online and users want to control their data (Fitzgerald, 2009). Additionally, Facebook has provided more granular control settings over time, allowing users to specify exactly what information they want to be showed and to whom, indicating Facebook’s understanding of user’s desire to have an increased level of control over their data (Acquisti, 2012).
Facebook’s size and level of influence in the online communication community ensures that their actions will continue to affect and shape the way users expect commercial enterprises of the same nature to behave. Communication, education and awareness to remind everyone of the permanence of information online, as well as the ability for anyone to access, duplicate, disseminate information posted on the Internet for years to come must be made clear. Facebook has fundamentally changed societal and economic conditions in today’s knowledge economy, but one thing that hasn’t changed is society’s fundamental views on users’ right to privacy.
Sources:
Acquisti, A., Gross, R., & Stutzman, F. (2012). Silent listeners: The evolution of privacy and disclosure on Facebook. Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality 4 (2), pp.7-41.
Andrade, N. N. G., Martin, A., Monteleone, S. (2013). “All the better to see you with, my dear”: Facial recognition and privacy in online social networks. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 11 (3), pp.21-28.
Debatin, B., Horn, A., Hughes, B. N., & Lovejoy, J.p. (2009). Facebook and online privacy: Attitudes, behaviors, and unintended consequences. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 15, pp.83-108.
Fitzgerald, M. (2009). The privacy paradox. CIO, 22 (14).
Weinstock, M. (2010). The new privacy norm: What exactly does privacy mean in a world where we can share our entire lives online? Hospitals & Health Networks, 84 (2), pp.20.
This post contains excerpts from Privacy on Facebook: Fundamental Privacy Principles Prevail by Diana Brown (2013).
