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Social Network Sites privacy a case study of Facebook
Preface , literature review
Introduction
social network sites (SNS) being a part of social people life, it reflects peoples physical
activities in network sites. Social network sites are a network applications and services
which facilitate collective actions and sharing information such as: Facebook, Tagged,
Twitter, etc. SNS members are increasing rapidly due to the development of peoples
environment and social life. As a result researchers interest increased as well to study the
impact of these sites on individuals life, particularly in the privacy aspect, and the
consequences of sharing personal information. Recently, Facebook is criticised more than
before in the aspect of the privacy of peoples information (Nov, Wattal 2009). Although the
internet privacy has a wide interest to research, social consequences has not had enough
interest if we take in account that the information shared in Facebook are not just for
Facebook, it is shared and used sometimes by members of its online community,
consequently, the usage of these information depends on other members behavio ur whichaffects peoples privacy concern. the Internet User Information Privacy Concerns (IUIPC)
suggests that peoples worries are increasing regarding to their online privacy (Malhotra et
al 2004). The evidence shows that users of the internet society are not likely to share their
private information online, while some of them do share when they know that their benefits
are more valuable that the information they provide . As general, they argue that the (IUIPC)
are effected by external factors like Culture. As a result, internet privacy concerns effected
community privacy concerns (Nov, Wattal 2009).
Sharing information
Sharing information between members of a community could be the major reason of
attending (SNSs) but research shows that sharing information affected with many factors
such as: Firstly, the period of tenure in an online community, thus, as long as a membership
last longer, a member tend to share more information and update his profile,( Brown and
Duguid). Secondly, personal privacy, which increased by time and become more important
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for a person who use (SNSs) For example: when a person add a friend to his Facebook he
shares him photos and contact information but Facebook beacon allowed friends of friends
to know a members updated. However, sharing these information could be control through
settings which allow users to adjust sharing their information to be appeared to everybody,
friend of friends or just to friends. And finally, the network position of a member, a network
position measured according to his or her centrality which is the number of direct ties in a
given node (Freeman 1979). It has been asserted that a members centrality is positively
related to his or her ability to share information wit h other members, therefore, as much as
a person able to share information he is more central, which is consequently increase
others access to a members information which increases the uncertainty of the
information shared on the website as well as the p eople who get access to the information
which encourage people to restrict sharing their information with others(Wasko and Faraj
2005).
Revelation of Facebook information and the consequences on university
students
(Lampe et al 2006) asserted that Facebook is massively used by university students, 70 per
cent of students whom questioned declared that they spend more than thirty minutes a day
on Facebook and 21 per cent spend more than an hour on the site. It also has been revealed
that Facebook users tend to show their personal information. For example, 82 per cent of
Facebook users provide their personal details such as date of birth , gender, marital status,
political views and cell phone(Gross and Acquisti 2005). Students believe that making their
membership useful need to show their personal infor mation, therefore, finding a friend or a
class mate is easier if his personal details appear on his profile, otherwise a member need to
categorize his search many times using the options of Location, Education and Workplace.
The previous results lead to the first assumption: The more using Facebook, the more
information shared between users. A new member wants to attend Facebook need to sign
up, and to sign up he a new member need to reveal his personal information. Members with
three hundred users or more are more likely to show their personal details such as their
preferable music (82.9 per cent compared to 64 per cent), favourite clubs(81 per cent
compared to 51.5 per cent), interests (85.3 per cent compare to 64.1) than users who got
less friends(Jones and Soltren 2005) which means that people who have got more details on
their profile are easier to find by other users. Hence, the previous facts lead to the second
assumption: the number of friends on u sers profile related to the amount of personalinformation revealed. According to Pew study which made in 2000, 61 per cent of users who
hided their personal details on the internet concern themselves as Privacy Defenders ,
those users believe that their personal data are not safe on the internet and it is used by
businesses to collect information, Meanwhile, users who less concern about their personal
information more likely to divulge their own information (Young and Quan- Haase 2009).
Moreover, (Viseu et al. 2004) argue that people who just worry about their personal
information when it abused likely to gain greater value of using the internet t han users who
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restrict sharing their personal information. Further, if a user does not think that his
information are threatened, he is likely to disclose it. Based on that, the third assumption is:
members concerns about their privacy have low levels to share personal information.
People are worried about their privacy, that concern increases clearly online. Fox et al
(2000) found that the majority of the internet users are worried about their privacy in twoaspects: first, obtaining their data by hackers and finding a personal information about them
by unwanted audiences. Acquisti and Gross (2006) asserted that students are highly
concerned about their personal information such as: sexual orientation or political views to
be obtained by unwanted audiences. Tufekci (2008) confirmed that students demonstrate
real concerns when they use their real names. As a result the previous findings lead the
fourth assumption that the more information revealed about a user, the more concerned he
is about unwanted audiences.
Young and Quan- Haase (2009) suggested information revelation as a method to examine
profile privacy , that means as much as students reveal information on their Facebook, theytend to restrict accessibility to their profiles. SNSs met this need for users by offering many
levels of privacy, for example: Facebook settings include four levels of privacy all networks
and all friends, some networks and all friends, friends of friends and only friends . as a
result Young and Quan- Haase (2009) suggested the fifth assumption that profile privacy
positively associated with the information revealed.
In order to protect their profiles, members of SNSs recurrently use false information
regarding to their date of birth, or current city and also they restrict the visibility of their
profile to be accessed with th eir friends only (Tufekci 2008). On the other hand, Gross and
Acquisti (2005) argue that users rarely tend to improve false personal information and they
are unlikely inclined to change their privacy settings.
Users privacy on Facebook
Young and Quan- Haase (2009) asserted many strategies implemented by students to
protect their information such as:
y Exclude personal information of their profile.
y Use the private email feature to contact with members instead of posting on a
friends wall.
y Use a websites settings to restrict access of unwanted members of an SNS. Forexample: a member able in Facebook to un-tag himself of unwanted pictures,
therefore, if a friend tag another member on a picture, the latter can un-tag himself
if he does not want others to see that picture in his album. Moreover Facebook
provide the limited profile feature that allowed a member to list some of his friends
in a separate list and then to adjust the accessibility of the lists members to his
information.
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Use of limited profile allows a member to manage what to show to others in Facebook
profile, consequently if a member concern about some information or pictures on Facebook
wall , he can categorize underage members in a separate list and then to adjust their access
to his profile.
The previous assumptions about Facebook and the strategies used by students to protecttheir own profiles lead us to discuss one of the most controversial facilities of Facebook
which is Facebook Beacon and its role in peoples online society.
Facebook usage of members information
Facebook beacon is a service launched by Facebook website in November 2007 enables
members to share their online activities with their friends as a news feeds or social adds. It
might be argued that this initiative allow people to share their activities with their friends
including purchasing, it allow websites (like Fandago and blockbuster) to send details about
customers who visited these websites to Facebook, which will be then displays to a
members friends. While that was stated in Facebook policy, customers complained when
they discovered what Facebook practice with the other websites visited by Facebook
members. The argument raised is the right of Facebook to use customers information to
share with a third party. The service ended due to customer complains in September 2009
(Tavani 2009). But the question members still ask that: does Facebook sell or share
customers information to another affiliates or for marketing purposes?.
Appendix (1) shows the Facebook iceberg model . the model displays the visible part of the
iceberg which represent 1/8 of the overall usage of members information. The visible part
shows a social networking and interactions between members .Meanwhile, the invisible
part of the iceberg contents of a massive warehouse built by a voluntarily data aggregation
and members activities used for commercial and marketing. Facebook was criticised of
abusing its members privacy more than once, the watchdog organization Privacy
International ranked Facebook in2007 the second in the bottom just before Google. This
ranking mainly based on the unauthorised usage of customers data and transfer it to
another companies also the managers of Facebook admitted recently that it use members
information to be transferred for other allies for advertisements and marketing purposes
(ABC 2010). Facebook profiles could be downloaded by a regular user using a simple
algorithm because the website used predictable URLs for its pages. In addition, Facebook
used other sources to collect information about its members automatically unless a memberopt out. Facebook asserted that the opt out facility in no more active but the data
aggregation still utilized by Facebook(Debatin et al 2009).
Further criticism about Facebook is allowing third parties to mining Facebook data
warehouse including the access to a sensitive personal information which might be used by
a thief to know members Social security number for American community (which contents
of a five digit postcode, gender and date of birth) through the information of users which
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y Encourage parents role on children online societies. 65 % of parents observing their
kids profiles on social network societies. Applying a kind of monitor y help parent to
avoid unwanted materials to be posted on kids profiles.
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Appendixes
Appendix (1) shows Facebook Iceberg Model (Iceberg Model Image Ralph A. Clevenger /
CORBIS )
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Appendix (2) a Facebook members profile has been accessed :
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(image source: http://danielfive.com/facebook-design-sucks-facebook-users-facebook/)