In the user we trust: Unrealistic expectations of Facebook’s privacy mechanisms

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

Facebook has created a complex system of controls to manage disclosure in an effort to help users address privacy concerns. Do these controls work in practice? What about controls for disclosure to Facebook itself? We explore user relationships with Facebook and its privacy mechanisms using scenario building and explored their reactions. We then confronted them with their actual practices by using Facebook’s apps permissions screen. While the majority of respondents felt responsible for their data disclosure, they failed to live up to their own expectations. We argue that the complexity of privacy controls places unrealistic responsibilities on the users, while masking the way Facebook itself collects user data. There is an urgent need to establish clear and explicit basic privacy norms for user relationships with social media companies.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society, SMSociety 2018
Number of pages12
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Publication date18 Jul 2018
Pages138-149
ISBN (Print)9781450363341
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 18 Jul 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event9th International Conference on Social Media and Society, SMSociety 2018 - Copenhagen, Denmark
Duration: 18 Jul 201820 Jul 2018

Conference

Conference9th International Conference on Social Media and Society, SMSociety 2018
LandDenmark
ByCopenhagen
Periode18/07/201820/07/2018
SeriesACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

    Research areas

  • Consent, Facebook, Privacy, ToS, User responsibility

ID: 303706833