Privacy and Boundaries: What's left?

As our culture becomes interconnected with more and more adults utilizing social media and other online features, what does privacy and boundaries mean to us anymore? From users posting every aspect of their lives to behind the scenes tracking and data mining, do online users have any privacy left and do they even think about their own privacy? This article will look at the relationship between online users and their privacy. How far is too far when it comes to advertisers monitoring our every move on social media and when do the all of the details of a person’s life become too much? Social media is evolving and with that evolution society is faced with new social situations it may have never thought of before; who would have ever thought our every move can be tracked every time a user gets on social media.

So what is meant by data mining? Data mining is “the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information – information that can be used to increase revenue, cut costs or both” (Palace, What is Data Mining). One problem that can come out of data mining is individual privacy; discovering information about their buying habits and preferences (Palace, Data Mining: Issue).

By the very nature of social media, it is meant to be a social situation where people connect to each other; generally this includes products and companies. In 2009, there was much discussion that Google was going to purchase Twitter due to the addition it would give them in data and information about users, to then sell to advertisers. Deep information about consumers has always been valuable to marketers and social media, email and other online activities can be tracked and that information can be accessed (Dvorak). In the case of social media, many users update what they are doing/eating, where they are or what they’ve recently purchased and sometimes connect this to the specific company/product/restaurant etc. In addition to social media, data is being collected when Internet users perform other tasks online, including online purchases, scheduling classes, and interacting with the government (taxes, census, and car and voter registration) just to name a few (Edelstein & Millenson).Purchasing sites like Amazon have a button that can be clicked after a customer has made a purchase to post the information about what was bought to social media like Facebook and Twitter. Amazon also has similar features when a Kindle user has finished reading a book, this information can be shared to social media. This information can all be used, stored, and collected by data-miners. It seems as though many users use these features without thinking about what is actually happening when they post these things on social media.

Pinterest is a data-mining gold rush with users pinning their favorite things all in one place. Pinterest is considered a bookmarking site and these “interest-based social networks allows for better models of user interest in context of established and new tasks, connecting interest with demographic characteristics, studying changes in user interest with respect to time and location…” (Popescu, 11). Because of websites like Pinterest, data miners are able to track trends easier than ever before because Pinterest is a curation tool that assembles updates and shares users’ interests, using boards (collections) of images (Popescu, 11).

With social media being a public space where individuals share ideas, where does the line of privacy start? Legally, that is a discussion for another day or another researcher. Culturally, in my view, it seems as though privacy isn’t something the majority of social media users are worrying themselves about. On December 12, 2012, Facebook changed their privacy settings. Facebook had a privacy policy voting poll that users could vote in to keep current privacy settings. However, only .07 percent of Facebook users participated; needing 300 million votes for their voices to be heard, only 600,000 users participated (Harris). Although privacy seems like an important issue, online users’ relationship with their own privacy would appear as though it’s lacking. Social media users to have the options of changing their privacy settings; allowing only users they consider friends to see their content. This is one step users to utilize to keep their user profiles less public than others. As more and more people use social media privacy will remain an issue as data mining becomes easier with new methods and website structures. This is a continuing issue that will have to kept top of mind.

UPDATE Dec 18, 2012:
A new privacy policy has been released for Instagram, giving themselves the right to sell users' images to advertisers without notifying the user. The policy also states that Instagram can share information about its users with its parent company, Facebook, as well as other affiliates and advertisers (BBC). The social media world is aflutter with discussion.

Sources

• BBC. "Instagram Seeks Rights to Sell Access to Photos to Advertisers". BBC, 2012. 18 Dec 2012. Web. 18 Dec 2012. 
• Dvorak, John. “Data Mining and the Death of Privacy”. PC Magazine. 25.8 (2009): 38. Web. 12 Dec 2012.
• Edelstein, Herb & Janet Millenson. “Data Mining and Privacy”. DM Review 13.12 (2003): 65. Web. 12 Dec 2012.
• Harris, Alistair. “Facebook Privacy Controls Updated After Users Ignore Policy Vote”. Click- Through Marketing. n.p. 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 13 Dec. 2012.
• Palace, Bill. “Data Mining: Issues”. Anderson Graduate School of management of UCLA. (1996). Web. 13 Dec 2012.
• ---. “What is Data Mining”. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. (1996). Web. 13 Dec 2012.
• Popescu, Ana-Maria. “Pinterest: Towards a Better Understanding of User Interest”. The Conference of Information and Knowledge Management, October 29 – November 2: Maui, HI. 11-12. New York, 2012. Web. 12 Dec 2012.

Sharing Aspect of Social Media

This article will look at the sharing aspect of social media and what it means/has done to the culture in the United States. For me, there are two different types of sharing on social media. One: the exchange between the “poster” or author of the blog/tweet/post and anyone who may comment on that blog/tweet/post. The sharing aspect here has to do with the sharing of ideas (communication) between the participants. The second has to do with the content the author is posting. The sharing is anything they decide to post, whether they are sharing parts of their day/life or sharing something that is important to them like an article/cause/video/etc.

For me, the first concept is not a new one; people communicating and exchanging ideas. This concept is still an important one and it will be discussed a little bit later when talking about co-created online content. To a certain extent, the second type of sharing is also not completely new (people could write letters to their friends sharing aspects of their day), but the idea of sharing these thoughts with the world (and to the extent some people share) is a new idea brought about by social media.

For the purpose of this article, the second type of sharing will be the focus. Humans have always wanted to connect with one another, and social media has given them a new medium in which to do this. The ease of communication has given way to what Jari Multisilta and Marcelo Milrad have dubbed “life publishing” (1). With the available mobile technology available today, users can share their experiences from anywhere that has network access (Multisilta, 2). This sharing could be in the form of a picture, a video, a post or a combination of those elements and uploaded to any number of social media websites. These shared experiences can be uploaded instantaneously by the user, in real time as the event is happening.

Social media has created a hybridized creation that is a combination of the user/author and the audience. Messages are no longer created solely by the author/owner; messages can be contributed to by other users on the medium, whether they are “friends” with the author or not. Other users can “write statements and post pictures on each other’s profiles, essentially co-creating self-presentation” of the author (DeAndrea, 510). Often, particularly on Facebook, “friends” are not intimately familiar with each other (DeAndrea, 525).

The cultural significance of the occurrence of co-creating could be the perception others have about the owners’ content on their social media pages, whether it was written by the owner or not. Will viewers perceive that all content on the page is the owners’ is reflective of their views or will there be a separation of owner generated material and material generated by others? DeAndrea’s study on this matter seems to indicate that if viewers of a social media site think the owner has full control of the page and updates it frequently, then they are responsible for all content on the page, favorable or not, because they have the ability to delete unwanted co-created content (524). This study brings to light some of the possible implications social media could have on relationships people have with others, whether they know them personally or not.

On a different note, moving away from interpersonal communications, marketers are beginning to understand the benefits of the sharing culture on social media sites. Modiv Media launched Modiv Social, which allows users to share coupons with their friends via Facebook. Not only are the retailer’s coupons being distributed and shoppers are being rewarded for their behavior with savings, Motiv Media is able to gather data about the sharers. Who are they and why are they influential in their social group? (Modiv Media). As all social media users know, this company is not the only one to post coupons on social media sites with the ability of sharing.

As a cultural phenomenon, the concept of sharing is changing the way people talk to each other on social media. Facebook has added a “share” button so certain posts can be shared very easily. With the frequency social media users update with new pictures and posts about their personal lives, it seems as though “personal lives” are diminishing in importance to these users. Getting the approval from peers and strangers would seem to be more important an endeavor than keeping what was once personal to yourself. Where can we go from here?

Sources

• DeAndrea, David. Participatory Social Media and the Evolution of Online Behavior. Human Communication Research, 38 (2012) 510-528. Web. 30 October 2012.
• "Modiv Media Launches Mobile-Social Coupon Sharing Feature." Professional Services Close - Up (2012)ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 4 December 2012.
• Multisilta, Jari & Marcelo Milrad. “Sharing Experiences with Social Mobile Media”. Proceedings of the 11th international Conference on Human-Computer interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (2009). Web. 4 December 2012.