Online privacy concerns are as individual as people them selves. If you ask a person for their bank details they are more then likely to refuse to give them to you. However, with social network sites like Facebook, Myspace, and twitter, many people will put other personally identifiable information on the internet. While they will not post their bank details, they will post their phone number, address, employer and education. Other people will not even post the town in which they live or adjust their account settings to hide this information. This essay will examine online privacy focusing on the social network Facebook.
As state previously many different people will disclose differing levels of information on their Facebook accounts. But what makes a person disregard their own privacy to post personal information like their birthday, political views, home town and intimate photos? 'It is the need for popularity that is driving people to disclose more personal information on Facebook than they normally would.' (Hughes p.3) While revealing to much information can be risky from a safety standpoint, 'maintaining too much privacy can be socially limiting.' (Hughes p.3) The idea behind Facebook is to interact with other users, omitting some information may limit the users ability to interact with others on the site. For example if you do not post your birth date on your profile your friends will not be able to wish you a happy birthday. Or if you do not post the school you attended, old school friends may not be able to connect with you.
To encourage users to disclose their personal information Facebook includes a template for users to fill out their information when joining, 'this creates a “norm” regarding what specific information to disclose based on what others have disclosed.' (Hughes p.3) However it is not just static information that users are encouraged to share but current changes in their lives through the “status update”. This provides users with a constant stream of information about what other users are doing. 'In this way, popularity and disclosure become inextricably linked. People with a high need for popularity may indeed care about their privacy, but they may not be willing to sacrifice their popularity by implementing privacy controls.' (Hughes p.4)
Differing people may have different levels at which they wish to disclose their information. The personal information which you may not want to make public may still end up on Facebook. 'You may not disclose personal information, but your online friends and colleagues may do it for you' (Levak p.100) While you may choose not to disclose some information your actions may not be enough 'to protect your privacy in the interconnected world of the internet' (Levak p.100). The concern is that a user can upload photos of himself with a group of friends, without being required to ask the permission of those friends. (Brooks p16) This opens up the possibility for personal information which you did not want to be made public becoming so by someone else’s actions.
The ramifications of your information becoming public can vary depending on what the information is. A simple picture might display you in an embarrassing situation this may get you into trouble with your parents or partner; however if the photo shows you when you are working it could cost you your job. This also gives way to false or inaccurate information being placed on the site. 'Despite this, there is no mechanism, on Facebook at least, by which an aggrieved individual can protect his privacy by requiring the friend to take down' (Brooks p.16) the information. As it stands if information you do not want to become public, be it a photo, where you live or what school you went to, does get placed on the internet there is little that can be done to remove it. This makes it difficult for anyone who wishes to have a tight control over their personal information to do so as you can not control what others put on their page and no way of having it removed.
While this is a concern a study conducted at MIT has shown that it is the friends you are linked to and what information they provide about them selves that can reveal information about you. The study analysed 4000 Facebook profiles, including links to friends. From the study the researchers where able to predict, with a 78% accuracy , whether the profile belonged to a gay male. (Levak p.100) The information collected from a Facebook profile 'can form a distinctive social signature.' (Levak p.100) Therefore it doesn't matter if you or your friends do not post some information about your self, just by being linked to certain people can reveal information about you.
What makes online privacy such a contentious issue would be a combination of the above topics. First a person needs to weigh up how, and what, they value as private information, and whether this out-weighs their social desires for popularity. Then they need to monitor their friends actions with regard to their own information. Finally they need to consider who they are linked to as friends, because just from the people you are linked to can give statistically probable information about yourself.
Considering all that has been looked at here it maybe best for people who want to retain full control over their personal information to not participate in sites like Facebook. If they are going to participate on these sites it would be best to consider what information they want to make available and take action to limit what they do not want to make available to the world.
Bibliography
Brooks, Gary. 2007, 'Friends on Social Networks can be a Threat to your Privacy': New Media Age, pp.16
Fogel, J. and Nehmad, E. 2009, 'Internet Social Network Communication: Risk taking , Trust and Privacy Concerns': Computers in Human Behaviour, Vol 25, pp. 153-160
Gelman, Lauren 2009, 'Privacy, Free Speech, and “BlurryEdged” Social Networks': Boston College Law Review, Vol 50, pp.1315 – 1350
Hughes, D. 2009, 'Facebook Users Disregard own Privacy to be Popular': Privacy Journal, Vol 35, pp. 3 – 4
Levak, B. 2010, 'Online Privacy Vanishing': Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, Vol 59, pp. 100 – 101
Nelson, S. Simek, J & Foltin, J. 2010, 'The Legal Implications of Social Networking, Vol 22, pp. 1 – 35
Strahilevitz, A. and Lior, J. 2005, 'A Social Network Theory of Privacy': University of Chicago Law Review, Vol 72, pp. 919 - 997
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