Since the arrival of early social networking sites in the early 2000s, online social networking platforms have expanded exponentially, the most prominent of them in the mid-2010s being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. The massive influx of personal information that has become available online and stored in the cloud has put user privacy at the forefront of discussion regarding the database's ability to safely store such personal information. The extent to which users and social media platform administrators can access user profiles has become a new topic of ethical consideration, and the legality, awareness, and boundaries of subsequent privacy violations are critical concerns in advance of the technological age.
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. Privacy concerns with social networking services is a subset of data privacy, involving the right of mandating personal privacy concerning storing, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Social network security and privacy issues result from the large amounts of information these sites process each day. Features that invite users to participate in—messages, invitations, photos, open platform applications and other applications are often the venues for others to gain access to a user's private information. In addition, the technologies needed to deal with user's information may intrude their privacy.
The advent of the Web 2.0 has caused social profiling and is a growing concern for internet privacy.Harris, Wil. June 2006. Retrieved from Web 2.0 is the system that facilitates participatory information sharing and collaboration on the Internet, in social networking media websites like Facebook and MySpace. These social networking sites have seen a boom in their popularity beginning in the late 2000s. Through these websites many people are giving their personal information out on the internet. These social networks keep track of all interactions used on their sites and save them for later use. Issues include cyberstalking, location disclosure, social profiling, third party personal information disclosure, and government use of social network websites in investigations without the safeguard of a search warrant.
History Before social networking sites exploded over the past decade, there were earlier forms of social networking that dated back to 1997 such as Six Degrees and Friendster. While these two social media platforms were introduced, additional forms of social networking included: online multiplayer games, blog and forum sites, newsgroups, mailings lists and dating services. They created a backbone for the new modern sites. Since the start of these sites, privacy has become a concern for the public. In 1996, a young woman in New York City was on a first date with an online acquaintance and later sued for sexual harassment after her date tried to play out some of the sexual fantasies they had discussed while online. This is just an early example of many more issues to come regarding internet privacy.
In the past, social networking sites primarily consisted of the capability to chat with others in a chat room, which was far less popular than social networks today. People using these sites were seen as "techies" unlike users in the current era. One of the early privacy cases was in regards to MySpace, due to "stalking of minors, bullying, and privacy issues", which inevitably led to the adoption of "age requirements and other safety measures". It is very common in society now for events such as stalking and "catfishing" to occur.
According to Kelly Quinn, “the use of social media has become ubiquitous, with 73% of all U.S. adults using social network sites today and significantly higher levels of use among young adults and females." Social media sites have grown in popularity over the past decade, and they only continue to grow. A majority of the United States population uses some sort of social media site.
Causes
There are several causes that contribute to the invasion of privacy throughout social networking platforms. It has been recognized that “by design, social media technologies contest mechanisms for control and access to personal information, as the sharing of user-generated content is central to their function." This proves that social networking companies need private information to become public so their sites can operate. They require people to share and connect with each other. This may not necessarily be a bad thing; however, one must be aware of the privacy concerns. Even with privacy settings, posts on the internet can still be shared with people beyond a user's followers or friends. One reason for this is that “English law is currently incapable of protecting those who share on social media from having their information disseminated further than they intend." Information always has the chance to be unintentionally spread online. Once something is posted on the internet, it becomes public and is no longer private. Users can turn privacy settings on for their accounts; however, that does not guarantee that information will not go beyond their intended audience. Pictures and posts can be saved and posts may never really get deleted. In 2013, the Pew Research Center found that "60% of teenage Facebook users have private profiles.” This proves that privacy is definitely something that people still wish to obtain.
A person's life becomes much more public because of social networking. Social media sites have allowed people to connect with many more people than with just in person interactions. People can connect with users from all across the world that they may never have the chance to meet in person. This can have positive effects; however, this also raises many concerns about privacy. Information can be posted about a person that they do not want getting out. In the book It's Complicated, the author, Danah Boyd, explains that some people “believe that a willingness to share in public spaces—and, most certainly, any act of exhibitionism and publicity—is incompatible with a desire for personal privacy." Once something is posted on the internet, it becomes accessible to multiple people and can even be shared beyond just assumed friends or followers. Many employers now look at a person's social media before hiring them for a job or position. Social media has become a tool that people use to find out information about a person's life. Someone can learn a lot about a person based on what they post before they even meet them once in person. The ability to achieve privacy is a never ending process. Boyd describes that “achieving privacy requires the ability to control the social situation by navigating complex contextual cues, technical affordances, and social dynamics." Society is constantly changing; therefore, the ability to understand social situations to obtain privacy regularly has to be changed.
Various levels of privacy offered
Social networking sites vary in the levels of privacy offered. For some social networking sites like Facebook, providing real names and other personal information is encouraged by the site (onto a page known as a 'Profile'). This information usually consists of the birth date, current address, and telephone number(s). Some sites also allow users to provide more information about themselves such as interests, hobbies, favorite books or films, and even relationship status. However, there are other social network sites, such as Match.com, where most people prefer to be anonymous. Thus, linking users to their real identity can sometimes be rather difficult. Nevertheless, individuals can sometimes be identified with face re-identification. Studies have been done on two major social networking sites, and it is found that by overlapping 15% of the similar photographs, profile pictures with similar pictures over multiple sites can be matched to identify the users.
People concern According to research conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, privacy of personal data is a top issue for 76 percent of global consumers and 83 percent of U.S. consumers.” Six-in-ten Americans (61%) have said they would like to do more to protect their privacy.
For sites that do encourage information disclosure, it has been noted that a majority of the users have no trouble disclosing their personal information to a large group of people. In 2005, a study was performed to analyze data of 540 Facebook profiles of students enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University. It was revealed that 89% of the users gave genuine names, and 61% gave a photograph of themselves for easier identification. Majority of users also had not altered their privacy setting, allowing a large number of unknown users to have access to their personal information (the default setting originally allowed friends, friends of friends, and non-friends of the same network to have the full view of a user's profile). It is possible for users to block other users from locating them on Facebook, but this must be done by individual basis, and would, therefore, appear not to be commonly used for a wide number of people. Most users do not realize that while they may make use of the security features on Facebook the default setting is restored after each update. All of this has led to many concerns that users are displaying far too much information on social networking sites which may have serious implications on their privacy. Facebook was criticized due to the perceived laxity regarding privacy in the default setting for users.
The “Privacy Paradox” is a phenomenon that occurs when individuals, who state that they have concerns about their privacy online, take no action to secure their accounts. Furthermore, while individuals may take extra security steps for other online accounts, such as those related to banking or finance, this does not extend to social media accounts. Some of these basic or simple security steps would include deleting cookies, browser history, or checking one's computer for spyware. Some may attribute this lack of action to “third-person bias”. This occurs when people are aware of risks, but then do not believe that these risks apply or relate to them as individuals. Another explanation is a simple risk reward analysis. Individuals may be willing to risk their privacy to reap the rewards of being active on social media. Oftentimes, the risk of being exploited for the private information shared on the internet is overshadowed by the rewards of exclusively sharing personal information that bolsters the appeal of the social media user.
In the study by Van der Velden and El Emam, teenagers are described as “active users of social media, who seem to care about privacy, but who also reveal a considerable amount of personal information.” This brings up the issue of what should be managed privately on social media, and is an example of the Privacy Paradox. This study in particular looked at teenagers with mental illness and how they interact on social media. Researchers found that “it is a place where teenage patients stay up-to-date about their social life—it is not seen as a place to discuss their diagnosis and treatment.” Therefore, social media is a forum that needs self-protection and privacy. Privacy should be a main concern, especially for teens who may not be entirely informed about the importance and consequences of public versus private use. For example, the “discrepancy between stated privacy concerns and the disclosure of private information.”
User awareness in social networking sites