As Privacy Policies Evolve, Corporate Facebook and Users Struggle to Reach an Understanding

One of the most interesting image components of Facebook, the global social media empire, is it’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg. With other large corporations, it generally seems that the CEO disappears behind the brand and is hardly ever a visible persona to consumers. However, when it comes to Facebook, Zuckerberg is widely recognized not only as the creator of the program, but the personality behind the logo. Despite his reputation as an unavailable and ruthless businessman, he communicates with users regularly, updating his blog with informational posts about recent news and changes. This communication is key in order for him to receive feedback from his audience, the 400 million Facebook users present across the globe.

Recently, the images of both Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have taken large blows due to an influx of negative feedback regarding the rapidly changing privacy policies. Internet privacy for user-generated content is a new issue, only becoming problematic within the last ten years. This is due to the fact that social media is a completely new invention, and rapidly evolving to become a constant part of our everyday lives. Young adults tend to be the population most affected by the privacy debate, as they have been raised around technology and have experienced the evolution of Facebook, among other social media tools, first hand. Now that so much information is being posted online, users are facing the consequences of exposing information to such a vast audience. Through this came the inception of privacy policies, which are particularly important on Facebook, where users often list contact and demographic information on their profiles.

 

Between wall posts, profile information and pictures, Facebook has many facets of content that require moderation and security. Facebook moved past their general privacy statement and adopted privacy controls and settings in 2006, allowing users to adjust the level of security for each section of their profiles. These controls have evolved over the past few years, as Facebook has grown to accommodate new features. With the added features the settings grew drastically more complicated.

 

Around December 2009, the privacy settings took a turn, making many aspects of user profiles more public. This is around the same time that Facebook-enhanced applications were first created. On Facebook, an application is essentially a smaller program within the larger Facebook database that users may choose whether or not to utilize. However, once users link the applications to their profiles, their private information becomes public to that third party. Consequences include user photos featured on sidebar ads, or the selling of private email addresses to spam companies.

 

During this time, the privacy policies changed to make gender, network, geographical location and fan pages exempt from any security moderation. As more and more of the world joined Facebook, this change marks the beginning of the epic backlash against Mark Zuckerberg and what some parties consider his lack of regard for internet privacy. The assumption is that these changes were made so that Facebook would become more attractive to future advertising partners, and gain more benefit from the existing ones.

 

During this time, Mark Zuckerberg received a lot of feedback from users dissatisfied with the lack of privacy controls compared with previous models of the privacy settings. However, many felt that there was little to no communication from the corporation back to their massive user base. With no change in sight, some groups of alarmed users created websites urging Facebookers to delete their profiles by May 31^st. While the amount of users who pledged to this mission only represented 2% of the overall 400 million users, the drastic action seemed to serve as a wake up call for Zuckerberg and his staff.

 

On May 26^th, Facebook formally revealed the new privacy settings. According to Zuckerberg, they had been listening to the users all along. He wrote in his blog, “You have sent us lots of feedback. We’ve listened carefully in order to figure out the best next steps. We recognize that we made a lot of changes, so we really wanted to take the time to understand your feedback and make sure we address your concerns.” While many users felt that this statement came too late, it was also better late then never. His blog post outlined the changes and how to navigate the new settings with ease and confidence.

 

Zuckerberg verified that in the end, Facebook realized that users merely wanted more control over the exposure of their information, and to control that security in the easiest manner possible. The new changes indeed reflect this request.

 

One of the most effective features of the new privacy policies is the main platform which offers a control of all content with a few easy clicks. A user’s audience is divided into three main groups, “Friends,” “Friends of Friends,” and “Everyone.” This makes the availability of information simple for even the newest Facebook user.

 

On this blog post Zuckerberg also offered his personal opionion on how he believes Facebook should be used. He wrote, “In general, we recommended that you share basic info like status updates and posts with everyone, content like photos and videos of you with friends of your friends, and sensitive items like contact information with only your real friends.” This may not be how many users choose to utilize social media. However, it does clarify Facebook’s mission and purpose, especially to those users particularly concerned with the privacy of their content.

 

In such a short time, Facebook has transformed into a completely different program from it’s original inception. It has become a global tool, used by students and professionals alike. While it took some experimenting to find the right mix of security and business, it seems that Zuckerberg and his team are on the right track to offering users the amount of privacy control they desire.

The Privacy Troupe: Poster/Video 6/4

The Privacy Troupe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwK2JQ-zTSE

5/20/10

The Social Media Era

By: Deric Shults

The social media era that is upon us has created an infinite number of directions in which the field of journalism and communications can expand. During the 90′s we as Americans experienced a time of great technological innovation, particularly in the area of the internet and all the professionals fields effected by the birth of it. The introduction of the internet forever changed the field of journalism and communications. With the change of the century came a greater advance in the field as social media swept the globe like a storm. As we approach the end of an eventful decade it seems the growth of social media and the advancement in journalism and communications is endless.

As great as social media has been for the world we live in today, it also brought with it negative aspects that sometimes take hold of the overall view of that subject. The Privacy Troupe has blogged multiple times this term about the many times facebook has changed their privacy policies in a short period. The annoyance that has been caused by these controversial changes has provoked a number of dissatisfied users to create a website urging fellow users to delete their facebook accounts by a certain date. According to the creators of the site, you’ll want to delete your account by May 31 and, “If you agree Facebook doesn’t respect you, your personal data or the future of the Web, you may want to join us.”

There is a less extreme route to take for diehard users who refuse to abandon their media outlet so quickly. According to Catherine Smith of The Huffington Post, “Facebook Protest seeks to challenge Faceook’s recent push for more openness by proposing a boycott of Facebook services on June 6.” This will allow for all participants in the boycott to let their voice be heard about the frustrating constant changes to privacy policies and the controversial implications of such policies.

Facebook is a publicly used domain that needs to protect the privacy rights of its users in order to uphold its credibility as a social media platform. There will always be those diehard “I refuse to delete my Myspace” type users who will continue to engage in their media outlet because of their loyalty but in order to protect their public image and maintain its status as a social media platform, Facebook must strive to protect the rights of its users.

Links

http://www.quitfacebookday.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/15/delete-facebook-account-q_n_576956.html

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/this_week_in_online_tyranny_6.php

http://blog.goodideas.org/2010/05/19/social-media-and-government-five-good-ideas-for-effectiveness/

http://facebookprotest.com/about/hello-world/

 

 

App Sketch

In order to design an app that would both complement our blog and spread to a wide audience,
the rest of the Privacy Troupe and I had to examine our original mission: to use our content
to educate others on how much privacy social media programs actually offer when it comes to
user-generated content. In our exploration of this topic, we have discovered that realistically,
privacy policies only protect content to a small degree. We set out to design an app that would
allow users to have this realization, and thus pay more attention to the content they do post
online.
As Facebook is currently the biggest existing social media outlet, most of our work up to this
point has focused exclusively on the corporate giant. We decided to further this theme by making
our app specific to Facebook users. By targeting a more specific audience, we were hoping that
our app would become more successful, and even perhaps be marketed by Facebook itself
We named the app Photo Tracker. The main goal of the program is to track pictures that
users post online. To use Photo Tracker, a Facebook user must link it to their account.
After doing this, they are able to view all of their Facebook photos on Photo Tracker on
their mobile phone. However, unlike Facebook, Photo Tracker allows a user to view the “stats”
of each photo by clicking on it. This includes the number of views, a list of users who have
viewed this photo, how long the photo has been posted online, and who has access to this picture,
according to set privacy policies.
The idea of setting an “alert” came about as we were exploring all the different ways third party
websites are able to gain access to user’s pictures after the recent change in Facebook’s privacy
policies. If using Photo Tracker, a Facebook user would receive an alert directly to their mobile
phone if any of their pictures had been reposted to outside web pages. They would then be able to
view the website, and potentially contact them and ask for it to be taken down.
The target audience for this app is very broad, as Facebook has billions of users. However, the
Privacy Troupe anticipates that this app will be most appealing to college students between the
ages of 18 and 22, who are both frequent users of social media and seem to be more concerned with
hiding incriminating photos than other Facebook populations. In making this app an easy way to track
photos, it is the hope of the Privacy Troupe that it will heighten awareness of the lack of protection
that the Facebook privacy policies do offer, and encourage Facebook users to consider  what kinds of
pictures they post. If users do not want their photos being accessed by the general public, the most
logical decision is not to post them to a social media website at all. We anticipate that this app
will help encourage this train of thought.

Data Mining VS Privacy

We have posted blogs so far about dangers of privacy, but I think we have some benefits by sharing our private information to some degrees. Today I’d like to talk about Data Mining.

Have you ever seen ads when you use Gmail or Facebook? A great number of advertisements will be found on the right side of the pages. So, do you know where these ads come from? It’s from your preferences or your behaviors.  These ads are always related to YOU because Facebook and Google collect your information, and investigate what you are interested in now. Computers automatically collect your info through your profile, what you write, and what you receive, and then they find ads related to your preference. Data collectors can find what you prefer, and also analyze how you behave. If women in Oregon  are currently interested in organic coffee on Facebook, data collectors can automatically understand what they are looking for now. Moreover, they will find some patterns on it.

This process is called data mining. This technology stems from computer science and human behavioral science.  This science suggests that human always have some patterns, so we can transform their seemingly useless data into useful information. Therefore, you can get some useful information from data mining if you give your insignificant information.For another example, users always see what they might be interested in on Amazon.com when they log in to browse. Amazon.com says “you might be interested in these books!” and recommends them. They know your preference as data. It’s very useful for you in order to find what you are interested in now. Therefore, data mining may discover new patterns and theory on human behavior, so this technology contributes to many science fields.

However, your information is automatically going to others even though it contributes toward progress in science and your life. You have to bear in mind someone only sees your information, but also analyzes who you are and how you behave. There is no useless info even if you are not conscious of it. To write your profile and post your photos on Facebook are to make it easy for data miners to collect data and analyze your preference. To sum it up, you give them not only your information, but also your patterns under consciousness.

<Sources>

Amazon.com Privacy Notice

Data Mining and Privacy: A conflict in the making?

Insurance Journal

Whole Brain Marketing

Information Management

History of Facebook – The Global Social Media Leader, By Isabelle

This interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a surprising look into both the mannerisms and the story of the creator of the multi-billion dollar social media empire, Facebook. While he seems to summarize the history of Facebook rather quickly in the short interview, in reality the inception of the revolutionary social media tool was pretty simple. Zuckerberg started Facebook as an undergraduate at Harvard in February of 2004. Despite being a declared Psychology major, he had always been a talented computer programmer. It was originally intended to serve the Harvard community, and went on to spread worldwide in just two years. How rapidly this one idea gained momentum is quite astounding.

While rumor has it that 23 year old Zuckerberg is widely considered to be a ruthless businessman, within this short interview the young man appears unexpectedly humble and friendly. We find out that the Facebook website originally ran from a few rented computers as opposed to the massive headquarters that most large websites use. To me, the most striking part of the video is when he explains that while most large websites are lucky to get users to return within the month, Facebook has over 70% of its users return every day. This truly shows the impact Facebook has had on the lives of its users and their reliance on the website as a way of social communication.

One thing the interview did not touch on was privacy policies, and the struggle the rapidly growing corporation has experienced with accommodating the wishes of its users to keep their content private and unreachable. In just the five years that Facbeook has been in existence, the privacy policies have evolved immensely. In 2005, Facebook pledged to its users that their private information would never be given to any company that was not a member of the site. With 2006 and 2007 came the ability for users to control their own privacy settings and whether or not your profile can be viewed by your entire network. Following the evolution of these policies, in the later few years Facebook started to itemize each portion of a user’s Facebook profile, giving different options for audiences. For example, users may have their photos available to “everyone,” “friends of friends,” or “just friends.”

It is hard to say where privacy policies will go in the future, but many users are concerned with the fact that Facebook insists on making general information available to applications, or third party users of the website. General information includes gender, name, profile pictures, and other key elements of a Facebook profile. Looking back into Facebook’s simple history, it will be interesting to see where this battle goes, and what creative ways Mark Zuckerberg will discover to face complaints.

SOURCES:

1) Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Interview

2) Facebook’s Eroding Privacy Policy

3) A Brief History of Facbeook

4) How Facebook Was Founded

5) 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

WordPress Upgrades

Katie: I added the “blog stats” widget because I believe it is important for us (and our readers) to know how much traffic our blog is getting as we add more content to it.

Maiko Ando: I changed the header to use  “original header image” because this header design explains more about our group concept than other designs. WordPress for Dummies 2010 page 290.

Deric Shults: I added the calendar widget because I think it makes it easier for our viewers to recall our posts by the dates they were created. WordPress for Dummies 2010, page 90.

Facebook Changes its Private Policy (Again)– by Katie

Facebook has made many changes to its interface and private policies since its inception in 2006; however, quite recently Facebook has been switching and re-wording privacy settings at least once a month.

Facebook does very little to inform its users of these changes unless they are one of the 8.5 million users who choose to follow the Facebook corporate page, where they are able to receive updates directly into their newsfeeds. Unfortunately, of the 400 million users on Facebook, the majority of them are not aware of the new tweaks Facebook has made.

The most recent and likely the most invasive change Facebook has made is the “Instant Personalization Pilot Program”, where select partners of Facebook (ie: third parties) can personalize their features with your public information when you first arrive on their website. Facebook says they are doing this to optimize your web experience by personalizing their sites’ features for you.

To stop this invasion of privacy and borderline Big Brother like cyber-stalking technology, we suggest you go to your privacy settings and uncheck the last box so your information is not as readily accessible to third parties so they can personalize their websites for you.

This new change is all about money. That’s right, money. Facebook is selling just about every tidbit of information its users post to advertisers to make money.

On the business side of the issue, Facebook is a free service and with such high user ship they have to make money to run the social networking site somehow. Which option would you prefer? Paying a monthly fee to use it? Or have your personal factoids and whatever you choose to post sold to third parties so they can direct their advertisements towards you?

Either way, no one will be satisfied.

Facebook has not only created this optional check box to either “opt-in” or “opt-out” for this new feature but they also have these advertisements and so-called “plug-ins” on every user’s sidebar. The Facebook user is given the option to “like” something and if they “like” it then it will be added to your interest tab on your Facebook profile and then that “interest” can send you updates in your newsfeed.

Facebook is spying on you and your preferences and because of that, some advertisers now know who to advertise their products to. This change will mostly likely cause more harm than good for the Facebook user whether they have questionable content on their profiles or not.

—————–

http://www.utne.com/Science-and-Technology/How-to-Get-Your-Privacy-Back-from-Facebook.aspx

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-20003185-256.html

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=384733792130

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=384733792130

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20003053-36.html

weekly post by Maiko

A school sued a student because of a comment they made on Facebook.

What happened to these students in a virtual world? This is their story.

Some students wanted to find a place to collectively vent about their school’s teachers, curriculum, and staff members. To achieve this, they made a Facebook group–which had a total of ten members until the end. A student posted defamatory comments on the group’s Facebook page. On this Facebook page, this student asked other students to post their comments about the school and its teachers with the following message: “Dont be afraid to post comments on whats going on, this is yor voice too.” (Errors in original.) In addition to that message, this student posted rude messages about teachers as well.

After finding this page, the school filed a lawsuit stating that the postings caused  severe emotional suffering and distress, declining business, and permanent damage to the plaintiffs’ personal and professional reputations in the eyes of “the public, their clients, and other members of their profession.”

You can look at this story in terms of students’ freedom of speech and the right to protect school reputation. Both sides are important to consider, but this group had only 10 members who could see the page.

In my opinion, this page was rather ineffective because of it was so small  and that it could not cause “severe sufferings” to the school and its faculty. But the important thing to remember in this case is: Facebook is there for you to express your opinions, feelings, and thoughts, but if those thoughts are degrading to a group or organization, then you could possibly run into trouble. That is why you should be careful of what you post of Facebook.

Recently, Facebook set new visions about privacy policy. There are top 10 privacy settings users should be aware of:

1. Understand your friend lists

2. Remove yourself from Facebook search result

3. Remove yourself from Google search

4. Detag incriminating photos of yourself

5. Set your photo albums to private

6. Avoid the post-break up Facebook effect

7. Control what information applications can access

8. Make contact information private

9. Avoid embarrassing wall posts

10. Keep friendships private

If you do not want to be involved in the type of case I mentioned above, you should keep these them guidelines in mind.

Freedom of speech in a virtual world is a good thing, but their are lines that should not be crossed.

<sources>

1. Electronic frontier foundation

2. All facebook

3. Tech crunch

4. The facebook blog

5. Librarian by Day

6. social media law

Deric’s Blog 4/16

Social Media is Watching…

The invisible link that connects our society is quickly becoming a quiet disguise for employers of all sorts to learn and evaluate future employers based on their content posted to their facebook or twitter accounts. Social media was invented as a network for friends to communicate, share, blog and express ideas and opinions about current issues. Along with these tools, employers are also using social media content to keep tabs on the their current employees or to gain information as if their facebook page were a resume. Frustrated posts about a long day at work, incriminating photos or videos and any content found unworthy may be used by employers not to hire or possibly terminate these social media victims.

It is the moral responsibility of someone using social media to be very cautious and aware of what they are saying or doing. They need to realize that upon posting public content to the worldwide web that they are now susceptible to being judged, critiqued and ridiculed and must be held accountable for the actions they have taken. As anyone technologically aware of social media can tell you, more young adults today are either unaware of the  implications when posting beer guzzling, pot smoking photos of themselves and friends or blatantly just don’t care. I myself have never posted incriminating photos of myself or friends simply because my step-father is an Oregon State police officer but I still would avoid posting public content that may be detrimental to my career and public image as an aspiring journalist.

On the other end of the social media spectrum, advertising and marketing agencies are left at the end of the day with endless possibilities to expand their brand on these social media platforms. The statistic of average advertisements seen per day is on a constant increase due to the way that social media has consumed our world. As technology continues to have no boundaries combined with a consumer market that thrives on instant connectivity with each other and the media, the field of journalism and communications will be an ever-changing market that shifts with the generations of tomorrow.

Links:

1) Social Media Privacy 2) Young Adults and Social Media 3) Social Media Marketing Blog

4) WordPress Blog: Advertising 5) Employers and Social Media