People don’t care about privacy.
Oct 30th 2009NiaLLLarkinUncategorized
Discussions about privacy are muddled.
That’s because people are often talking at cross purposes. It turns out that privacy is virtually impossible to define. And to further confuse matters, we think we care about it. But when it really comes down to it. We don’t.
To begin to make progress in understanding privacy we first have to recognise that we relate to privacy at two distinct levels. At a societal level and at a personal level.
Yet another threat to society
At the societel level the concern is about government spooks and megacorporations. Pouring over your data and watching your every move. This is a very real concern. But…
It’s impersonal. And filed away in our heads under “Yet another threat to society.” In short people don’t feel it acutely enough to actually alter their day-to-day behaviour. Even though they kinda know they should. So, in a practical sense its just as if people don’t care about privacy.
This time its personal
The erosion of privacy at a personal is very different. I hold that privacy cannot be usefully defined at this level, except to be defined by the breach. By instances of social embarassment. By those moments when social spheres collide with messy consequences.
Facebook has gone further than most in bringing this reality to light. At its best Facebook is a serendipity engine. At its worst its a privacy trainwreck.
To restate that. When we are pleasantly surprised we call it serendipity. When we are unpleasantly surprised we call it a breach of privacy.
‘Privacy’ is a red herring
Its all very subjective and context sensitive and this is why I say that at this level privacy as a notion is not amenable to definition. And it distract and confuses us, making it difficult to see what is really going on.
Its better to reframe the situation. And recognise that people don’t care about privacy. What they really care about is social embarassment.
They want the happy accidents that are the upside of social collisions without the messy consequences that are the downsides.
Of course, this is not possible with Facebook. Its a double-edged sword. You can’t have one without the other.
The Future
I suppose someone will eventually find a way give the consumers what they want. The upside without the downside. What will it look like? Who knows, but it will likely be a new platform that doesn’t have these problems baked in.
*****Timely example********
Facebook ‘reconnect’: The latest Facebook innovation illustrates this baked in double-edged sword… serendipity engine / privacy trainwreck scenario perfectly.
Facebook ‘reconnect’ prompts users to reconnect with ex-lovers and dead friends.
4 Comments »
Dermot Casey on 30 Oct 2009 at 9:59 am #
Niall
“hold that privacy cannot be usefully defined at this level, except to be defined by the breach. By instances of social embarassment.” 100% true. I’ve seen some very messy things happen on Facebook recently that define this. And have seen people delete posts (only known because I got the email alert with the content)
I think the title is wrong. People do care about privacy, just as they do about obsenity (another difficult to define term). Grew up in a small town and everyone knew “who you were” so slivers of privacy were jealously guarded. Think the web will go this way. Much damage will be caused along the way though. Another example is Teenagers. Many hate twitter and use Facebook etc in a very limited way. Texting is huge among teenagers as its private and 1:1.
Dermot
NiaLLLarkin on 30 Oct 2009 at 11:25 am #
Thanks Dermot. Very interesting points
Makes me wonder how do the figures compare between private messaging and public messaging on facebook and twitter. Anyone know?
Joe McNamee on 30 Oct 2009 at 1:14 pm #
I hear where you’re coming from, Niall, with the attempt to divide the issue into ‘privacy’ and ’social embarrassment’ but I think the latter term, while serviceable and a good description of what it can mean to an individual dilutes the power of the original sentiment.
In fact, most individuals would speak in a near tautological way of a violation of their ‘personal privacy’ to emphasise it’s importance to them. ‘Privacy’ is just too good, too strong and too accurate a word to ditch in this case. So, what about looking at the issue as the difference between data privacy and social privacy. (And you can instantly start looking for a less cumbersome term than ‘data privacy.)
And I wonder whether or not social embarrassment/social privacy can only be defined by the breach? How about the following for a simple test - ask someone posting on Facebook whether, if put into a room with all their ‘friends’ in the flesh, would they be perfectly happy to show each and every one of them every single photo they post or say to each and every one out loud, each thought they post.
I think it comes back to the prophylactic effect of the computer, putting users at such a remove from each other that we begin to play fast and loose with our own principles of social privacy/social embarrassment.
It is certainly something a lot of people are growing increasingly uncomfortable with - and as a criticism of facebook that I regularly encounter, it is delivered with much more emotional heft than the more detached criticism of issues such as data mining.
It is possible that the continued lowering of personal boundaries through ‘come-one, come-all’ social networking activity will leak into the ‘real world’ to such an extent that it has a profound effect on human behaviour and you can certainly make a case for it with the ‘reality-TV-ing’ of a whole generation but I personally believe that we are developing a sort of schizophrenic dual personality, with one persona for the real and one for the cyber.
The day that someone designs a social networking tool that allows you to ‘grade’ your ‘friends’ commensurate with the sensitivity of the material which you wish to post online will be the day those dual personalities begin to merge. Without losing the serendipity engine, of course. You had a great metaphor for it yourself when you spoke to me of moving through a wedding talking to older relatives, such as grandparents, then moving to aunts and uncles, then to cousins, then to your immediate friends and the different levels of sharing you would have with each. There you go, Niall, off wit ya now and design that for us, like a good man!
NiaLLLarkin on 30 Oct 2009 at 2:05 pm #
@Joe Good food for thought there. You got me thinking about scenarios of social embarrassment. Like when everyone is talking loudly in a room and all conversations within a certain proximity become socially private because all the background chatter drowns out the other conversations. Privding a kind of security through obscurity.
I remember this kind of scenario a lot in school. The teacher would leave the room and there’d be a sudden explosion of high decibel chatter. And when the teacher would return BANG! the room would go silent in an instant. Inevitably there’d be one or two people caught on the hop, continuing to talk on loudly for a second or two before realising that they’d been broadcasting to everyone instead of conversing with one or two.
Most of the time, they were not saying anything unfit for broadcast but that didn’t stop them feeling major embarrassment. The sudden realisation that you’ve been caught on the hop by a change in context and appropriateness can trigger quite a reaction.
I think perhaps that there’s a lot of that going on on facebook, with the absense of the feedback of the room going silent. Meaning that people can go on braodcasting for a long time when they feel that they are having a comfortable chat within a tight social group. Only to have a rude awakening.