[Air-l] Facebook protests

[Mark Bell]

Michael's perspective on this issue was definitely a new way of looking at
things but I still can't agree.

"By adding a news feed for all changes to a
particular user's profile, Facebook changed the way personal
information flows within that context, and that does impact user
privacy."

The changes definitely change personal information flow but they don't
affect privacy. It may affect "perceived" privacy but anything a student
puts up on Facebook has to be seen as no longer private.

A student is not forced to join Facebook. There is no requirements for
profile information except a name and a valid university email address. So
anything that is added above that is the choice of the student and by doing
it, they are choosing to make private material public.

As we saw yesterday, loosing that perceived privacy is powerful and it is
definitely something to research on it's own.  Today, I am more worried
about the effects of  these changes on how we gain access to data from these
sites for research purposes.

M

On 9/6/06, Michael Zimmer <michael.zimmer at nyu.edu> wrote:
>
> Many seem to think it is naiive and contradictory for students to
> post personal information online and then complain when a new feature
> is created to make it easier for others to find it.
>
> However, this is less about users not realizing that their personal
> information is public in the first place, and more about how changing
> the norms of flow of that information disrupts the "contextual
> integrity" within the Facebook community.
>
> Yes, they knew that all that information was out there, but the
> existence of that information takes new meaning (and new potency) now
> that the delivery method has been refined in such a way that each and
> every change is automatically highlighted and sent to tens/hundreds/
> thousands of other users. By adding a news feed for all changes to a
> particular user's profile, Facebook changed the way personal
> information flows within that context, and that does impact user
> privacy.
>
> While users can control the privacy settings for their profile,
> Facebook should also (if they haven't already) allow users to control
> what information, if any, will be sent via the feed.
>
> [http://michaelzimmer.org/2006/09/06/facebook-changes-cause-rift-in-
> flow-of-personal-information/ ]
> -michael
>
> -----
> Michael T. Zimmer
>   Doctoral Candidate, Culture and Communication, New York University
>   Student Fellow, Information Law Institute, NYU Law School
> e: michael.zimmer at nyu.edu
> w: http://michaelzimmer.org
>
>
>
> On Sep 6, 2006, at 10:01 PM, Ledbetter, Andrew Michael wrote:
>
> > Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the recent changes at
> > facebook and subsequent user response:
> >
> > http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71739-0.html?tw=rss.technology
> >
> > Briefly, facebook recently enabled "news feeds" which allow
> > anyone's friends to immediately see changes to profiles, friendship
> > networks, etc., a feature which cannot be deactivated. In response,
> > many users have formed protest groups, one of which has
> > approximately half a million members (and there are thousands of
> > other protest groups)---the users claim the changes are "stalker-
> > ish". Media is framing as a tension between the transparency of
> > social networking sites and desire for privacy.
> >
> > Andrew M. Ledbetter
> > Doctoral Candidate
> > Department of Communication Studies
> > University of Kansas
> >
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-- 
Mark Bell
MA student in Ball State University's Digital Storytelling program
http://www.storygeek.com
"The future is here...it's just not widely distributed." - Tim O'Reilly