The use of social and mobile applications has risen over the years. As these new technologies are being made readily available to anyone, the issue of privacy should be considered. With websites such as Facebook and Flickr giving out personal details of its users, there is a need to determine how effectively they implement privacy and safety measures. For the subject “Social and Mobile Computing” we were asked to sign up to social networking sites and reflect upon them.
Background
Facebook is an online social networking blog. It allows users to create their own profile, which contains their interests, networks, groups, contact details and photos. The use of ‘Networks’ allows users to find people in their area, or from their high school or work place. Users can add ‘notes’ which serve as journal entries and other users in their friends list can comment on them. Other users can also post on your “Wall”, which is a message board on your profile. A unique feature of this site is, it allows the user to add their own custom ‘status’. This appears as “(User name) is ......”
Flickr is a photo sharing website. This site is principally used for uploading and sharing photos with friends and other users. Users also have the ability set up a profile with information about themselves, such as favourites, interests, contact details. Once you have uploaded a photo, other features can be added to it. Users can add a title and description, and also ‘tag’ the photo with keywords, so that other users interested in that tag can find your photo, and comment on it.
Focus
The issue of privacy online has become more apparent in the past few years, and should be considered an important aspect of social and mobile applications. A lot of users of the internet have a desire to keep their personal details private, however the increasing popularity of social and mobile applications means that users of these sites are often becoming unbothered by the fact that their personal information is made public. The aspect of privacy can be used to not only protect users from people they don’t know, but those they do know. Users of blog sites often create private accounts or conceal their identity in some way in order to make it difficult for friends and family to read their personal thoughts.
The downside of social and mobile applications being so public is that this makes it easy for people to find your personal information. Recently, an ACT student has attempted to highlight the fact that putting information on the internet can be dangerous, by plastering myspace user’s pictures all over his capital city. He states that, “profiles contain far greater potential for stalking, harassment, fraud and other misuse of their personal information … potentially dangerous individuals like me know where you live, what you look like, where you go to school, who your friends are.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 2007) However, a positive outcome of exposing certain information about oneself online can create new friendships. By waiving their privacy of their location and interests, users may find potential friends in their area they have not met.
Privacy is an issue that I had the most trouble with when I signed up for Facebook and Flickr as part of this course. This issue is present in my thoughts for every site I sign up to, and it seems only fitting that I reflect on my experience using social and mobile computers in relation to the aspect of privacy.
Reflection
Facebook’s effective or ineffective use of privacy is an important focus. An significant part of Facebook is setting up your profile. The main way of finding people – and them finding you – is through a user’s profile. This profile contains your contact information, your location, your personal details, your likes and dislikes, education and work information.
Figure 1.1 - Facebook. Personal details on my profile.
When I created my Facebook account, I was not a first time user of social and mobile applications, however I had not signed up to a site as casual about sharing my personal details. This site is heavily focused on networking, and this is the main way for users to find each other. In order for any potential friends to find me, I had to give out details that made me uncomfortable, such as my hometown and country, as well as birth date. I am a regular user of LiveJournal, and I did not have to give out these details on this site, because it is not absolutely necessary. LiveJournal is more focused on locating people by their interests, and communities they have joined. What I loved about this site is that it was not necessary for me to give out any information that I found uncomfortable in order for me to be completely immersed in this site.
What worked well in terms of privacy for Facebook was that it gave you the option to make your profile “private”. This means that it forbids those on your friends list from viewing your profile. However, they still had access to seeing your name, Display Picture and networks you are in (location).
Figure 1.2 - Facebook. Adding privacy to your contact details.
Despite having this option, not many users take advantage of it. The majority of people I looked up, did not have this set to “Private”. If I had made this account out of my own interest, I would definitely have had my profile set to “Private”, as it makes me uncomfortable knowing that anyone can view personal information about me. As I mostly use my LiveJournal account, I have made sure to make my account “Friends-Only”, which means only people I have selected as “friends” can view my details and journal entries.
Having a good deal of personal information readily available on your profile does make a stalkers job a lot easier; however a good majority of users of this website do not appear to be concern for their privacy. As I stated earlier, there is an option to set your profile to private, but many users do not take advantage of this option. I spend a good deal of time trying to ‘stalk’ old classmates, with great success. All I had to do was to know your name and your location (country or state) and search for you. The search brings up results of those sharing your name, and from there I simply had to select which user is the one I was searching for by identifying their photograph, and voila – I’ve found you. From there I have access to all your photographs, where you live and your school/work. I personally am glad for the lack of concern some users show for their privacy, as otherwise I would not have been able to track down so many childhood friends of mine. I am grateful that all of the old friends I’d found weren’t hesitant about placing photos of themselves on the internet, because I found it amusing to discover what they look like after so many years.
However, my innocent stalking can hardly be considered dangerous, there are users of Facebook that do not have as innocent intentions. The escalating use of social and mobile applications such as Facebook and Myspace, by paedophiles has only just been recognized. According to the Onion (2006) a 47-year-old paedophile has begun using myspace as a tool of locating his next victims. To find a victim all he has to do is locate the primary school’s myspace community within his area, and he has access to profiles and pictures of all the children in that community.
Flickr has more respect for privacy, in terms of their profile, then other sites I have used. Although profiles on this site are not the main focus, I was pleased to see that this site was not broadcasting my personal information. In this respect, I found that Flickr has used privacy more effectively then Facebook has. In comparison, it displays a lot less personal information about its users on their profiles. However, Flickr is not as concerned with your profile as much as Facebook is.
The main use of this site is for users to upload pictures and photographs. Users of this site upload their artwork, or photographs of themselves and others. When I signed up for this site I had two major concerns: art-theft, and random users accessing my photographs. For this course I was required to upload pictures of my choice to Flickr. I thought that it would be meaningless and pointless to upload random pictures that I did not create, so I decided to upload some of my own. As I have stated earlier, I enjoy my privacy and did not want to upload photos of myself onto the internet. Instead I decided to use my Flickr account for uploading images that I have created either in my own time, or for university. Nevertheless I was concerned that my pictures may be taken and used elsewhere, without my permission. Flickr does have effective privacy measures in this respect. When you upload a photo you can associate a Creative Commons license with it, which should legally protect others from claiming your artworks.
Figure 1.3 - Flickr. Privacy settings for my profile.
A downfall for Flickr in relation to privacy is it does not restrict users from uploading too much information about themselves. Users can post photographs of themselves, their house, their friends and their families, which makes them easy to find, if you know what area they live in. Another concern I had was people inappropriately using photographs uploaded to this site. This is a concern of many Flickr users, that people may be joining this site for the wrong reasons:
“So, I realize that flickr is an open site, and that everyone posts pictures by choice, but I'm a bit uncomfortable that there are folks who join just to get some free pics of
naked ladies. I am particularly uncomfortable with some users who register, and have hundreds of favorites marked (but no photos of their own, and no profile) of pregnant women. It just seems unfair to the fantastic models and incredible hotographers who did not put their photos up on this site to be used in this manner.” (Amelia, 2005)
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that both Facebook and Flickr have taken measures to keep their users safe and providing them with the means to do so, however the majority of people have not taken advantage of this. Personally I would not regularly use these sites if I did not have the ability to keep my personal details private. I am aware of how easy it is to find people I know who do not necessarily want to be, as I have done so. Anyone with as much commitment as a few hours could use these two sites as a means for contacting users with less innocent intentions then mine.
‘Amelia’, (2005). Flickr: “Creepy Flickr Users.” Retrieved August 16, 2007 from http://www.flickr.com/groups/central/discuss/33903/
Facebook, (2007). Facebook. Retrieved August 17, 2007 from http://www.facebook.com/home.php?
Flickr, (2007). Welcome to Flickr! Retrieved August 17, 2007 from http://www.flickr.com/
LiveJournal, (2007). LiveJournal.com. Retrieved August 17, 2007 from http://www.livejournal.com/
Sydney Morning Herald, (2007). The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: Stay in Touch. Retrieved August 15, 2007 from http://blogs.smh.com.au/sit/archives/2007/01/embarrassments_he_knows_where.html
The Onion – America’s Finest News Source, (2006). Pedophile Less Interested the More he Views 13-Year-Old’s Myspace Profile. Retrieved August 15, 2007 from http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46453
5 comments:
I agree with you reflection on privacy on Facebook. I am amazed at what people are willing to show the world. Personally, I find to disturbing people can feasible know my name and recognize me without my interaction or at least knowing someone who knows me.
I agree that users should control their privacy settings, but it is not just the setting which need to be managed.
I see importance in, as your article says, choosing the privacy setting but furthermore, a connection with who your Facebook Friends are. Who we choose to be friends with, may violate the purpose of the privacy settings. This may be a simple as having two friend that you don't want interactions between. For example, this may be work colleagues and close friends who don't understand the difference between sending a message and writing on a wall. Privacy must also be controlled through choosing our friends.
This extra layer can be carried all the way back to clicking the upload/publish button for any information we choose to submit online. It is eventually our choice to put the information online.
I feel the privacy setting must be controlled but ultimately, it is our offline choices (who we choose to have as friends, what we publish) as the deciding privacy control.
Note: I write this with full understanding that we were all required put personal information online because of this subject. You talked about an uncomfortability(?) with providing you birthday. This opens the philosophical question; Is it okay to lie to retain your privacy?
Thanks for the reply. ^^
I think that it could be okay to lie about yourself online, in some cases. However, I would tend to leave out or give misleading information, otherwise you would be basically creating an alternative identity.
I would feel uncomfortable with randoms knowing my birthday, because they would then know how old I am. (Could possibly lead to creepy unwanted attention.) Instead of lying about my birthyear I just leave it out. But when I was younger I used to lie about it, which may or may not have been the smart thing to do..
you make a very valid point about privacy on face book, I too felt uncomfortable about giving up all my personal details so freely. I thought you argued your point very well. A well structured and thought out reflection. Well done!
(On a side note when I read "According to the Onion (2006)" I thought it was quite funny and that it must have been a typo until I read the references. hehe)
Nice topic Julia. I also agree with your argument about the constant privacy issues a lot of these sites contain. I also didn’t like having to give up personal details (email, address, age etc) to these sites to simply be a part of the community… however there is also the participation aspect of mobile and social technologies.
By making the decision to use these sites, each user has made a potential self-sacrifice for the wider social and mobile community. Its up to the user to know which is more important.
Good article. Is it the new availability of the technologies or the availability of information supplied by the technologies? Your focus is quite good and well presented. Manual grammer check would help (spend = spent past/present mix). Not sure about the Onion reference (general rule if it is in the Onion it is ficticious), although it highlights the points you are making. Overall a good article, a little bit more depth in terms of 'do people realise, is it clearly stated on the sites what information is public/private to who, are people being duped'.
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