CHRISTIAN FUCHS - ICT&S - Universität Salzburg

Christian Fuchs: Social Networking Sites and the Surveillance Society“77% of respondents claimed not to have read FB’s privacy policy (the realnumber is probably higher); and that many of them mistakenly believe that FBdoes not collect information about them from other sources regardless of their useof the site (67%), that FB does not combine information about them collectedfrom other sources (70%), or that FB does not share personal information withthird parties (56%)“ (Acquisti and Gross 2006: 53). “Twenty-two percent of oursample do not know what the FB privacy settings are or do not remember if theyhave ever changed them. Around 25% do not know what the location settings areto summarize, the majority of FB members claim to know about ways to controlvisibility and searchability of their profiles, but a significant minority of membersare unaware of those tools and options. (...) “ (Acquisti and Gross 2006: 52).There would be“a number of different reasons for the dichotomy between FB members’ statedprivacy concerns (high) and actual information hiding strategies (mixed, but oftenlow also for members with high stated concerns). Those reasons include peerpressure and unawareness of the true visibility of their profiles“ (Acquisti andGross 2006: 52).Females were much less likely to provide their sexual orientation than men. Overall,the authors conclude that there was a lack of privacy concerns of the users.The data mining analysis provided the following results:“In general, CMU users of the Facebook provide an astonishing amount ofinformation: 90.8% of profiles contain an image, 87.8% of users reveal their birthdate, 39.9% list a phone number (including 28.8% of profiles that contain acellphone number), and 50.8% list their current residence. The majority of usersalso disclose their dating preferences (male or female), current relationship status(single, married, or in a relationship), political views (from ‘very liberal’ to ‘veryconservative’), and various interests (including music, books, and movies). A largepercentage of users (62.9%) that list a relationship status other than single evenidentify their partner by name and/or link to their Facebook profile“ (Gross,Acquisti and Heinz 2005: 75).78% revealed their full name. 99.94% of the profiles were accessible, also to nonregisteredusers.The authors give the following potential reasons for the high level of revelation:“perceived benefit of selectively revealing data to strangers may appear largerthan the perceived costs of possible privacy invasions; peer pressure and herdingbehavior; relaxed attitudes towards (or lack of interest in) personal privacy;incomplete information (about the possible privacy implications of informationrevelation); faith in the networking service or trust in its members; myopicevaluation of privacy risks; or also the service’s own user interface, that may drivethe unchallenged acceptance of permeable default privacy settings“ (Gross,Acquisti and Heinz 2005: 73f)12