Paper presentation at Critical Alternatives 2005, the fifth decennial Aarhus Conference. Abstract below, the paper is available at: https://goo.gl/RtissL My dissertation, Interpersonal Boundary Regulation in the Context of Social Network Services, includes a longer discussion of the topics of the paper: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/42272 For further publications, see: airilampinen.fi/publications "Synthesizing prior work, this paper provides conceptual grounding for understanding the dialectic of challenges and opportunities that social network sites present to social life. With the help of the framework of interpersonal boundary regulation, this paper casts privacy as something people do, together, instead of depicting it as a characteristic or a possession. I illustrate interpersonal aspects of networked privacy by outlining four perspectives to ‘sharing’. These perspectives call for a rethink of networked privacy beyond an individual’s online endeavors."

1. Networked Privacy
Beyond the Individual:
Four Perspectives to ‘Sharing’
Airi Lampinen (@airi_)
Mobile Life Centre, Stockholm University
Critical Alternatives
August 19, 2015

2. This Talk
• Builds on an understanding of networked
privacy that has been developed in and around
HCI over the past decade
• Casts privacy as something people do
together instead of depicting it as a
characteristic of a piece of content or a
possession of an individual
• Outlines four perspectives to ‘sharing’
derived from prior empirical work

3. What is
a Social Network Site?
a networked communication platform in which participants
(1) have uniquely identifiable profiles that consist of user-
supplied content, content provided by other users, and/or
system-provided data
(2) can publicly articulate connections that can be viewed and
traversed by others
(3) can consume, produce, and/or interact with
streams of user-generated content provided
by their connections on the site
(Ellison and boyd, 2013)

4. The Ubiquity of
Social Network Sites
• The widespread adoption of social network sites
affects sociality beyond the activities that take place
on these platforms
• Even those who do not use SNSs are embedded in
social settings that are shaped by their existence
• Refusing to join a social network site does not mean
that one would not be referred to or featured in the
service in question

5. Interpersonal Boundary
Regulation (Altman)
Communication Privacy
Management (Petronio)

6. Interpersonal
Boundary Regulation
• The negotiation of accessibility and inaccessibility
that characterizes social relationships
• Access to social interaction is regulated both by
how physical spaces are built and through the
behaviors that take place in them
• These practices are applied to achieve contextually
desirable degrees of social interaction

7. Boundary Regulation
in the Networked World
• Interpersonal boundaries are not just an analogue of
physical demarcations, but they are, in part,
determined by physical structures
• The widespread adoption of SNSs challenges
customary mechanisms for regulating
interpersonal boundaries
• Palen & Dourish (2003) raised the issue of boundary
regulation in an networked world, setting the scene for
research on interpersonal networked privacy

8. • The boundary regulation framework originates in
considerations of social life in physical settings
• Yet, offline activities have often been bypassed
when examining boundary regulation and SNSs
• Boundary regulation efforts must be understood
holistically, since these platforms are tightly
woven into everyday life, with consequences also
to those who can or will not use them
Boundary Regulation
Online and Offline

9. • The idea that not just individuals, but groups,
too, need to regulate their boundaries was a part of
the original boundary regulation framework
• Petronio and colleagues have elaborated on
how individuals and groups make decisions over
revealing or concealing private information,
collaboratively
• Yet, this notion of group privacy has received
scarce attention within HCI
Boundary Regulation
as a Group

10. ‘Sharing’
a central way in which people talk about
their engagement with SNSs
and their efforts to manage what gets
published, to whom, and with what kinds
of implications

11. ‘Sharing’ is not
a monolithic activity
• the sharing of manually selected digital
content
• the streaming of automatically tracked
behavioral information
• acts of sharing that directly challenge
the hypothetical online–offline divide

12. Four Perspectives
to ‘Sharing’
(1) Sharing with multiple groups
(2) Sharing on behalf of others
(3) Sharing via automated mechanisms
(4) Sharing as a group

13. #1 Sharing
with Multiple Groups
• SNSs may bring about group co-presence,
a situation in which many groups important to an
individual are simultaneously present in one
context
• Challenges related to this tendency of SNSs to
flatten diverse audiences into one group have been
well documented as context collapse
(e.g. Vitak, 2012; Lampinen et al, 2009)

14. #1 Sharing
with Multiple Groups
• Maintaining a broad social network in an SNS may
lead to a sense of having to present oneself and
one’s social connections consistently with everyone
• Regulating interpersonal boundaries can be difficult
when it is hard to keep track of to whom access is
provided, or to figure out whether/when these
audiences interact with what is made available
(Lampinen et al, 2009)

15. #2 Sharing
on Behalf of Others
• While individuals can (try to) regulate
interpersonal boundaries on their own, ultimately
their success always relies on others’ support
• First, who does the ‘sharing’?
• Second, maintaining a boundary requires
that others affirm one’s actions and support
the definition of oneself that is put forward

16. #2 Sharing
on Behalf of Others:
Subtle acts of support
• Facebook users reckon on how and by whom
the content that they share will be viewed/interpreted
• Some ponder whether the content they share might
inadvertently create challenges for a friend
• Efforts to cooperate can include considerate acts
of sharing, discretion in self-censorship,
and benevolent interpretation
(Lampinen et al, 2011)

17. #2 Sharing
on Behalf of Others:
Explicit co-operation
• This can involve coming into agreement on shared
codes of conduct through explicit negotiation of
what to share, and under what conditions
• A strong emphasis is placed on being trustworthy
and considerate – not only something desired of
others but also
a standard to live up to
(Lampinen et al, 2011)

18. #3 Sharing via
Automated Mechanisms

19. #3 Sharing via
Automated Mechanisms
• Automated sharing mechanisms are promoted as a
means to make sharing increasingly effortless and
authentic in its presumed completeness
• Yet, much work can go into regulating what is being
shared via them (profile work)
• Interpersonal boundary regulation entails decisions
beyond sharing per se, affecting how people behave in
the first place
(Silfverberg et al, 2011; Uski & Lampinen, 2014)

20. #3 Sharing via
Automated Mechanisms
• Boundary regulation is not solely a matter of restricting
access but also one of providing it
• Users make efforts to regulate sharing
• when the sharing mechanism risks to publicize content
that they do not want to have in their profiles
• when the sharing mechanism fails to publicize content
that it should have and that users want to appear in their
profiles
(Silfverberg et al, 2011; Uski & Lampinen, 2014)

21. #4 Sharing
as a Group
• A service where members can engage in hospitality exchange
by hosting visitors or by staying with others as guests
• Here, boundary regulation takes place not only in online
interaction but also in the course of interacting with guests face-
to-face

22. #4 Sharing
as a Group
• Multi-person households regulate access to their home
cooperatively as they welcome couchsurfers
• Beyond sharing credentials, account sharing involves
negotiations over
• how to present multiple people in a single profile
• how to decide and communicate whom to host
• how to share the benefits of a good reputation
(Lampinen, 2014)

23. Concluding Points
• SNSs have characteristics that disrupt
conventional premises of interpersonal
boundary regulation
• Yet, boundaries are regulated through co-
operative processes also in their presence
• People regulate both individual and collective
boundaries cooperatively, with consideration to
others, and in line with relevant social norms
and the affordances of technologies

24. Going Forward
• How might we design technologies and policies
that are supportive of interpersonal boundary
regulation aims and practices?
• How can we rethink networked privacy beyond
the individual and his/her online endeavors?
• How could we better connect this line of
research with other issues regarding
privacy in a networked world?