The ethics of privacy in sharing culture 2016

THE ETHICS OF PRIVACY IN SHARING CULTURE: NEW CONCEPTS AND PRACTICESDr Zoetanya Sujon, Regent’s University LondonDr Lisette Johnston, City UniversityNovember 12, 2016

6th European Communication Conference

Mediated (Dis)Continuities: Contesting Pasts, Presents and Futures, Prague

Overview • Privacy and sharing culture

• Methods

• Findings

– Privacy matters

– Public “persona”

– Private sharing and depersonalization

• Conclusions

The ethics of privacy in

sharing culture

• Ethics of privacy

• From privacy as protection and control of information

– Photography in late 1800s/early 1900s

– Pushing boundaries around public/private

– Mass communication of new quantities of details (Warren

and Brandeis 1890; Fornaciari 2014)

• Networked privacy (Marwick and boyd 2014; Lambert

2013; Fuchs 2014)

• Studies on privacy and youth

– Privacy matters

– Young people care most about social privacy and exercise

sophisticated privacy strategies

Methods • 7 respondents keeping diaries over 1 week + in-depth interviews

• Survey of 18-36 London residents (N=292)

– 252 eligible entrants, 192 complete

– Completion rate 76.9%

• Snowball sampling and social media promotion / advertising

Age range Female Male

18-19 Diarist 6 (18) --

20-29 Diarist 1 (22), Diarist 3 (25) Diarist 5 (27), Diarist 7 (24)

30-37 Diarist 2 (36) Diarist 4 (37)

Total 4 3

Themes from diarists:

“The big three”

• 1. Privacy matters

– Control and choice dominant metaphors

– Social rather than institutional

• 2. Persona or public facing self

– “Most interesting” and “best self” (18-19 year olds)

– “I wanted people to see that about me” (18 year old

female)

– “It feels like they are having to reaffirm who they are…

or who they want to be” (27 year old male)

• 3. Privacy / sharing strategies

– Private sharing and “public friends”

– Depersonalization

1. Privacy matters: “Privacy builds an individual. Privacy plays a major role in differentiating your individuality from the society. I think, today privacy means staying safe” (respondent 24,

aged 20-24).

How important is privacy is to you?

Privacy means "having your own space to think or act without judgement“ (respondent 142, aged 30-34).

7 3 1327 23

56

16

61

99

Number of mentions in answer to the question "What is privacy to you?" (N = 194)

“Privacy is the freedom to decide to share information, data, movements, conversations, images etc. relating to oneself” (respondent 116, 30-34).

“Privacy is the right to choose which personal information is disclosed and which you prefer to keep to yourself” (respondent 32, 20-24).

2. Persona: “My best self”

Do you present a public side of yourself on social media that is different from how you

are in person? (N = 206)

“Well, we all try to look more

attractive, more interesting, more...

happy than we actually are don't we?” (respondent 189, 20-24).

3. Sharing strategies

• Private sharing

– Rise of Snapchat

– Sharing videos, images, selfies, articles via private channels

(Messenger, WhatsApp, SnapChat etc.)

– “When I do share stuff, it’s privately as I don’t feel

comfortable sharing to public friends” (18 year old female

diarist)

• Depersonalization

– 27 year old male diarist, only mention of a personal

relationship was as context in the diary – not content

– 25 year old female diarist, who shared an article on “single-

shaming in the 20s” – “I realized after sharing this, that

basically I had broadcast my relationship status to all of my

Facebook friends”

– “I do not share things that I feel are personal” (respondent

192, 30-34)

3.61%

10.82%

34.02% 33.51%

18.04%

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

35.00%

40.00%

Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never

Do you share your personal thoughts or feelings on social media?

3

12

35

55

83

5

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never Not applicable

Do you share details of your romantic relationships on social media? (N=194)

Conclusion: Ethics of

privacy in sharing

culture?

• Strong support for existing research on youth and privacy

– “Social” privacy matters most

– Exercise privacy strategies around sharing behaviour

– Control and restricted access oriented understandings of privacy dominate

• Networked privacy may accurately outline shifts around ideas of privacy but respondents do not think of privacy in these terms

• Public “persona”, depersonalization and private sharing

• Blank, Grant; Bolsover, Gillian; Dubois, Elizabeth. 2014. ‘A New Privacy Paradox: Young people and privacy on social

network sites’, Oxford Internet Institute and Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre Working Paper. April, URL:

http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/A%20New%20Privacy%20Paradox%20April%202014.pdf

• boyd, danah. 2014. ‘What is privacy?’, Apophenia, URL:

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2014/09/01/what-is-privacy.html

• boyd, danah. 2013. It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. Yale University Press

• boyd, danah. 2012. ‘Networked Privacy’, Surveillance and Society. Vol 10, No 3.4, pp 348-350, available at

http://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/networked/networked

• boyd, danah; Hargittai, Eszter. 2010. ‘Facebook privacy settings: Who Cares?’, First Monday. Vol 15, No 8,

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3086/2589

• boyd, danah. 2010. ‘Making sense of privacy and publicity’, SXSW. Augstin, Texas, March 13, available at

http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2010/SXSW2010.html

• boyd, danah; Marwick, Alice. 2009. ‘The Conundrum of Visibility’, Journal of Children and Media. Vol 3, No 4, pp 410-

414, available at http://www.danah.org/papers/2009/ConundrumVisibility.pdf

• Brake, David. 2014. Sharing our Lives Online: Risks and Exposure in Social Media. Palgrave MacMillan

• Clarke, Roger. 2014. ‘Privacy and Social Media: An Analytical Framework’, Journal of Law, Information and Science.

Vol 23, No 1, available at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JlLawInfoSci/2014/8.html

• Couldry, Nick; Livingstone, Sonia; Markham, Tim. 2007. Media Consumption and Public Engagement. Palgrave

MacMillan

• Fornaciari, Federica. 2014. ‘Pricey privacy: Framing the economy of information in the digital age’, First Monday. Vol

19, No 1. URL: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5008/4184

• Fuchs, Christian. 2014. Social Media: A Critical Introduction. Sage

• Gangadharan, Seeta Peña. 2015. ‘The downside of digital inclusion: expectations and experiences of privacy and

surveillance among marginal internet users’, New Media and Society. November 9.

URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/64156/

• Gershon, Ilana. 2010. The Break-up 2.0: Disconnecting over social media. Cornell University Press

• Gillham, Bill. 2000. Developing a Questionnaire. Continuum

• Hampton, Keith; Rainie, Lee; Lu, Weixu; Dwyer, Maria; Shin, Inyoung; Purcell, Kristen. 2014. ‘Social Media and the

‘Spiral of Silence’’, Pew Research Centre. August, URL: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-

the-spiral-of-silence/

• Hasselbalch Lapenta, Gry; Jørgensen, Frank. 2015. ‘Youth, privacy and online media: Framing the right to

privacy in public policy-making’, First Monday. Vol 20, No 3, available at

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5568/4373

• Hodkinson, Paul. 2015. ‘Bedrooms and Beyond: Youth, Identity and Privacy on Social

Network Sites’, New Media and Society, online before print, DOI:

10.1177/1461444815605454, URL:

http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/809096/9/bedrooms%20and%20beyond%20nms%20paper%20-

%20for%20repository.pdf

• Lambert, Alex. 2013. Intimacy and Friendship on Facebook. Palgrave MacMillan

• Livingstone, Sonia; Mascheroni, Giovanna; and Murru, Maria Francesca. 2014. ‘Social networking among

European children: new findings on privacy, identity and connection’, In Dominique Wolton (ed.) Identité(s)

Numérique(s). Les Essentials d'Hermès. CNRS Editions, Paris, France. (In Press), URL:

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/59306/1/Livingstone_etal_Social-networking-among-European-children_2014.pdf

• Livingstone, Sonia; Haddon, Leslie, Görzig, Anna, and Ólafsson, K. (2011). Risks and safety on the internet:

The perspective of European children. Full Findings. LSE, London: EU Kids Online. URL:

http://www.lse.ac.uk/media%40lse/research/EUKidsOnline/EU%20Kids%20II%20(2009-

11)/EUKidsOnlineIIReports/D4FullFindings.pdf

• Livingstone, Sonia (2008) Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers' use of social

networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression. New media & society, 10 (3). pp. 393-411

• Madden, Mary. 2014. ‘Public Perceptions of Privacy and Security in a Post-Snowden Era’, Pew Research

Centre, November, URL: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/12/public-privacy-perceptions/

• Madden, Mary; Lenhart, Amanda; Cortesi, Sandra; Gasser, Urs; Duggan, Maeve; Smith, Aaron; Beaton,

Meredith. 2013. ‘Teens, Social Media, and Privacy’, Pew Research Centre. May, URL:

http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/

• Martin, Kirsten. 2013. ‘Transaction costs, privacy and trust: The laudable goals and ultimate failure of notice

and choice to repsect privacy online’, First Monday. Vol 18, No 12, available at:

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4838/3802

• Marwick, Alice E.; boyd, danah. 2014. ‘Networked Privacy: How teenagers negotiate context in social

media’, New Media and Society. Vol 16, No 7, pp 1051-1067, available at http://www.tiara.org/blog/wp-

content/uploads/2016/04/Marwick_boyd_Networked_Privacy_NMS.pdf. DOI: 10.1177/1461444814543995

• Ofcom. 2016. ‘The Communications Market Report, 2016’, Ofcom. August 4, URL:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/26826/cmr_uk_2016.pdf

• Privacy International. No Date. ‘What is Privacy?’, Privacy International. Available at https://www.privacyinternational.org/node/54

• Papathanassopoulos, Stylianos. 2015. ‘Privacy 2.0’, Social Media and Society. Vol 1, No 1, URL: http://sms.sagepub.com/content/1/1/2056305115578141.full

• Rauhofer, Judith. 2012. ‘Future-proofing privacy: Time for an ethical introspection?’, Surveillance and Society. Vol 10, No 3 / 4, pp 356-361, URL:

http://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/future-proof/future-proof

• Raynes-Goldie, Kate. 2010. ‘Aliases, creeping, and wall cleaning: Understanding privacy in the age of Facebook’, First Monday. Volume 15, Number 1 - 4, URL:

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2775/2432

• Raynes-Goldie, Kate. 2011. ‘Digitally mediated surveillance, privacy and social

network sites’, The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting. URL: http://www.digitallymediatedsurveillance.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Raynes-Goldie-

Digitally_mediated_surveillance_privacy_and_social_network_sites.pdf

• Raynes-Goldie, Kate. (2012). Privacy in the Age of Facebook: Discourse, Architecture, Consequences. PhD. Curtin University, Perth, Australia.

http://www.k4t3.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/privacy_in_the_age_of_facebook_raynes-goldie.pdf

• Regan Shade, Leslie; and Shepherd, Tamara. 2013. ‘Viewing youth and mobile privacy through a digital policy literacy framework’, First Monday. Vol 18, No 12, available at

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4807/3798

• Rosenzweig, Paul. 2012. ‘Whither privacy?’, Surveillance and Society. Vol 10, No 3 / 4, pp 344-347, URL: http://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-

society/article/view/whither/whither

• Seale, Clive (Ed.). 2012. Researching Society and Culture, 3rd Edition. Sage

• Smith, Aaron. 2014. ‘Half of Americans don’t know what a privacy policy is’, Pew Research Centre. December, URL: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/04/half-of-

americans-dont-know-what-a-privacy-policy-is/

• Solove, Daniel J., 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, p. 745, 2007; GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289.

Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=998565

• Stutzman, Fred; Gross, Ralph; Acquisti, Alessandro. 2012. ‘Silent Listeners: The Evolution of Privacy and Disclosure on Facebook’, Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality. Vol 4, No 2, pp

7-41, available at http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1098&context=jpc

• Warren, Samuel; Brandeis, Louis. 1890. ‘The Right to Privacy’, Harvard Law Review. Vol 4, No 5, URL: http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/Brandeisprivacy.htm

[email protected] [email protected]

@jetsumgerl @LisetteJohnston