Facebook and the Future of Privacy

For the past month or so, I have been collecting links to articles discussing Facebook.Most of them, as you might expect, discuss the privacy issue the site raises. After all, the value in the site comes precisely from the relative openness it requires from its users. The more you update and share, the more ?friends? you add, the more interesting the site becomes and the more comments you receive from others. While most people are, I think, relatively aware that the site involves a degree of sharing that is not compatible with absolute privacy, there are anumber of nuances raised by the articles I've read that we may not be immediately aware of and which I would like to examine. I also have a very few words to say on another favorite topic of privacy advocates: the future of privacy itself.

I want first toconsider a rather lengthy piece by James Grimmelman titled "Facebookand the Social Dynamics of Privacy". Not only is thepiece interesting in its own right, but it cites numerous worksHASTAC members should find interesting if they haven't already readthem. Grimmelman examines the disjunct between privacy law/controlsand how people actually use technology. He points out that, despitethe fact that Facebook has extensive, fine-grained privacy controlsavailable, there are several problems that arise when we see howthose controls are employed by average users:

Facebook is Exhibit A for the surprising ineffectiveness of technicalcontrols. It has severe privacy problems and anadmirably comprehensive privacy-protection architecture. The problemis that it's extraordinarily hard--indeed, often impossible--totranslate ambiguous and contested user norms of information-sharinginto hard-edged software rules. As soon as the technical controls getin the way of socializing, users disable and misuse them. (3)

Mostof Grimmelman's paper is a detailed analysis of how the socialdynamics at work in Facebook lead to a different evaluation ofprivacy risks inherent in the site's use than the technologicalcontrols imply. In short, users often think their Facebook activitiesare more private than they actually are.

Asa recent Facebook convert, but also someone with a longstandingconcern for privacy, I have also experienced this conflict betweenprivacy and use. I created my profile with the most restrictive setof privacy controls enabled. My profile was not discoverable insearches and only friends could see anything in my profile. I alsohad added very few friends (under 20), so my presence on the site wasonly barely visible. Since I have started using the site morefrequently (read: multiple times every day), I have not only addedquite a few new friends, but I have made my profile visible to anyonewho searches Facebook once I realized that was why I never receivedany friend requests. I have not, however, allowed my profile to bevisible to search engines nor do any of my comments on other people'sitems appear in the news feed. From glance at other users' profiles,I see that these settings show that I am far more privacy-minded thanmost. Nevertheless, as Grimmelmann points out, the nature of Facebookitself leads to potential privacy leaks, regardless of one's privacysettings.

Oneof the first problems one encounters in looking toward atechnological solution to the privacy problem is that socialnetworks, whether represented online or not, possess inherently fuzzyboundaries. We have finely-tuned and nuanced rules for socialinteraction that allow us to navigate complex and far-flung networks.Any attempt to model these nuances digitally are bound to fail as thepossible parameters of a relationship proliferate. How do we, forinstance, make a place for the person who thinks you like them, butto whom you're nice only out of politeness? At a party, we can easilychange the topic of conversation if we see that a person from whom wewould like to keep certain facts is within earshot, but on Facebook,everyone is in earshot all the time, without being obviously so.

Further,there are problems of information leakage that people do not alwaystake into account. Grimmelmann gives the example of two collegestudents who were potentially in minor legal trouble after a party. Apolice officer observed one student urinating in public, who then ranaway when the officer approached them. The other student disavowedany knowledge of his friend. Yet, later, the officer investigated thestudent's friends on Facebook and found that the escaped urinatorwas, in fact, friends with the supposedly innocent witness, arevelation that lead to both receiving citations. Or take the case ofphoto tagging. Again we return to parties. Facebook offers apreponderance of photos that capture nights of drunken revelry.Often, the photographer will tag his or her friends engaged insometimes compromising, embarrassing, or even illegal activities. Bythe time the subject of the snapshot sees the image and detags, thedamage has been done. One of the most dramatic instances of suchinformation leak comes in the form of the first known Facebookdivorce. David Weiner writes about the case:

Apparently Emma Brady only learned that her husband, Neil, wasthrough with her after her Facebook friends began calling. ...And in trueinternet fashion, someone actually commented on the "divorce"before Mrs. Brady could see it. The comment? Mr. Brady was "betteroff out of it." And the commenter? A Canadian woman, sittingthousands of miles away.

Likephotographs of youthful indiscretions, this very public divorce wasknown to numerous others before the soon-to-be-divorced found out.

Withall these potential problems, what, then will happen to our sense ofprivacy? Grimmelmann suggests "either society will significantlyadjust its privacy norms or a lot of people are going to have somelifelong regrets about their youthful Internet indiscretions"(33). I suspect the digital memorial of regrets might lead to someadjustments in privacy norms, but in likely unpredictable ways. I aminherently suspicious of predictions of wholesale revolutions,especially when dealing with such deep-seated issues. There isevidence, however, that norms are already changing, albeit withoutmuch explicit recognition on the part of many early adopters. FarhadMajoo argues:

[Facebook] has crossed athreshold?it is now so widely trafficked that it's fast becoming aroutine aide to social interaction, like e-mail and antiperspirant.It's only the most recent of many new technologies that have crossedover this stage.... Facebook is now at that same point [as cellphones]?whether or not you intend it, you're saying something bystaying away.

WhileI'm not convinced that Facebook has reached that level of saturation,some sort of social networking site will, I'm certain, become nearlyunavoidable soon. It may well be Facebook that takes that role, atleast in the US. Whether it's Facebook or another site, the effect ofprivacy will likely be the same. As Grimmelmann points out, it's notthe technology per se, but the purposes for which we use socialnetworking sites that cause privacy concerns. I have a hard timeimagining a useful site that didn't, in some way, expose myinformation to people with whom I have little or no relationship.

What,then, might the future of privacy look like once a generation hasgrown up always connected and that doesn't bat an eye at the exposureof previously private, if typically mundane, information aboutpeople? Will such a generation be less concerned about governmentsurveillance? In the UK, it often seems like Orwell's dystopia iscoming true, as Cory Doctorow and others on bOINGbOING continue tochronicle. The situation in the USis less noticeably dire, but even with the numerous changes ingovernment surveillance policies here under the previousadministration, it can be difficult to get people to think about, letalone be concerned about civil liberties and privacy issues. Are weturning into a society that accepts the trade-off between privacy andconnectedness as an inevitable and acceptable one? Or do we needdifferent, more effective methods of instruction on this topic? Iimagine the people up in arms about privacy and civil liberties (thetwo go hand-in-hand, after all) may often come off as hysterics andChicken Littles to the general population. I don't have any answers,though. I suspect, however, that many of you ponder these sorts ofquestions, as well. If so, I'd love to hear what you have come upwith.

UPDATE: From the comments, I discovered that Facebook just changed its Terms of Service to be more evil (hat tip John Jones). Also, there's a discussion on Savage Minds and the ambiguity of personal relationships (hat tip Cathy Davidson).