Survey examining users' self-reported and actual Facebook privacy practices
1. Bridging the privacy paradox
between awareness and
behaviour: a survey inquiring
in users self-reported and
actual practices of Facebook
applications
Rob Heyman, Paulien Coppens,
Jo Pierson
iMinds-SMIT
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
2. • Attitude: Do you like to be watched by complete strangers?
• Behaviour: He does nothing to stop this
• Perceived and real affordances (Norman)
"Our overarching design goal is to make that
box as invisible as possible, so that your
content is the thing that's most important.”
Russ Maschmeyer, Facebook designer
“a primary purpose for interface is to make legible
what is otherwise happening invisibly. You don't
improve the experience of nailing things by
pretending the hammer doesn't exist.”
Dylan Fareed, designer
What would Truman do?
3. Contextual privacy
Expecting (forming & negotiating) rules that set a boundary or context
to limit the flow of personal information (Nissenbaum, Child &
Petronio)
4. Privacy empowerment
• Capabilities to achieve a functioning
(Sen)
• Paradigms used in designing privacy
preserving technologies (Diaz &
Gürses, 2012)
oAwareness
oControl
oResistance
5. Disempowerment & cargo
cult privacy
• “And the last thing I’d ever do is lie to
you” = @ Facebook we value your
privacy
• Selection of privacy settings
• Design decisions: absence of buttons,
sign-up buttons imply consent, grey
small font for privacy information
6. It is possible to evaluate the affordances and
thus capabilities in social media interfaces and
this indicates how and what kind of
empowerment is encouraged/discouraged
PE influence on micro level
Limitations
• Top-bottom
• What about other trade-offs, capabilities
Future research
• Research awareness, attitudes and
capabilities of users
• Map the limits of their capabilities
Conclusion