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Social Networks and Surveillance for Society pp 129–148Cite as

Searching on Facebook Through the Lens of the Concept of Privacy

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Social Networks ((LNSN))

Abstract

This chapter points out that judges and legislators didn’t consider privacy risks on social networking sites and user’s thinking mode in this legal privacy protection mechanism. Social networking sites have considerable privacy risks: improper personal information flow, such as information to be leaked to the third-party software, to be tagged unwillingly on photos, or involuntarily to be shared one’s own living news, even self-monitoring by individual recognizes while using social networking sites, or social control. And a user is accustomed to assess privacy risks and set privacy preferences based on his/her experiences and social relationships in the real world. This thinking mode is different form the legal privacy protection mode (on/off), and could not be sufficiently protected by the current regulations. This chapter thought that Helen Nissenbaum’s “privacy in context” theory may be the solution. This theory not only considered the approach that users assess privacy risks, but also provided “appropriateness” and “transmission” principles to solve the current issues. In fact, privacy as context theory did not create a totally new theory deviating from the reasonable expectation of privacy. It is better to say that this theory, as the supplementary, gave a new approach to explain the reasonableness standard, and a new normative sense of the past legal concept. It might find a more reasonable boundary to protect the gradually eroded privacy on social networking sites.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    U.S. Const. amend. IV.

  2. 2.

    Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360 (1967).

  3. 3.

    Katz, 389 U.S. at 351.

  4. 4.

    Katz, 389 U.S. at 361 (Harland, J., concurring).

  5. 5.

    L. M. Gladysz, “Status Update: When social media enters the courtroom,” 7 I/S:J.L. & Pol’y for Info. Soc’y 691, 2012.

  6. 6.

    E. W. Sholl, “Exhibit Facebook: the discoverability and admissibility of social media evidence,” 16 Tul. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop. 207, Fall 2013, pp. 211–213.

  7. 7.

    J. Grimmelmann, “Saving Facebook” 94 Iowa L. Rev. 1137, 2009.

  8. 8.

    J. Grimmelmann, “Saving Facebook” 94 Iowa L. Rev. 1137, 2009, pp. 1152–1153.

  9. 9.

    This paragraph would like to emphasize here that even if the user doesn’t tag himself/herself, friends may still track the user; or the user makes the setting of untag himself/herself or removes his/her tag, but friends have still mentioned him/her in the text or description. This is a typical social risk. Facebook users must understand the risks of their own information being spread on the Internet. Moreover, many users, especially elderly and young people, who often do not care or do not understand these privacy settings, use settings by default, that is, being marked. (A 2013 Taiwanese study noted that up to 61% of Facebook users were “not” actively checking privacy settings on a regular basis, and even one in four users did not know that they could adjust their privacy settings. See http://www.trendmicro.tw/tw/about-us/newsroom/releases/articles/20131002054038.html (last visited 10 May 2017).) In this regard, the author believes that to reduce the risk, Facebook may be required to change the original settings. However, Facebook will inevitably consider these involving interests and huge business opportunities which information has brought.

  10. 10.

    D. J. Solove, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, Yale University Press, 2008, p. 108.

  11. 11.

    P. Wallace, The Psychology of the Internet, new edition, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 28–37.

  12. 12.

    E. Praiser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, Penguin, 2011.

  13. 13.

    E. Bakshy, S. Messing, L. Adamic, “Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook”, Science, 10, 1126–1160, 2015.

  14. 14.

    D. J. Solove, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, Yale University Press, 2008. In fact, facing these continuous privacy disputes, Facebook also gradually changes user permissions of privacy settings. For example, now the Facebook user can hide the friend list. But the risk still exists; although users can only see each other that have intersection after hiding the friend list, it’s possible to push back a friend’s social circle through these mutual friends’ friend lists, which were set by default.

  15. 15.

    The user may have the right to authorize the specific third party to access personal information, but, in the author’s point of view, once the user wants to subscribe the third-party service, the user must allow this third party to access part of his/her information, such as personal file, which may lead the user to bear risks of big data. If the user doesn’t allow the third party to access his/her personal file with considerations, he/she will undertake the risks that who cannot use this service. This all-or-nothing privacy setting is what this chapter wants to challenge. The author currently has a rough idea, that is, perhaps the third-party service can provide users the alternative of pay for service, if users want to keep their personal information.

  16. 16.

    D. J. Solove, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, Yale University Press, 2008.

  17. 17.

    https://www.facebook.com/help/255898821192992/ last visited 10 May 2017).

  18. 18.

    https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation (last visited 10 May 2017).

  19. 19.

    https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation (last visited 10 May 2017).

  20. 20.

    Specifically, the user can share his/her information through personalizing his/her friend circle by privacy settings. The user can open posts to the public, share information with all friends in his/her friend list, only authorize some friends to access or exclude specific friends to know, include and exclude friends and lists by customization, or even allow no one but himself/herself to see. Users can use their own preferences to decide who can access their information, post, or other activities. These preferences can be set in a unified setting, or users can set them case by case. But the dissemination of information is still the same as indicated in Figure 2, which means, when a user sets his/her preference to public, anyone can access his/her public contents; if the user limits the distribution of the contents, only qualified friends have access to the information. Even a friend of a friend, he/she cannot access these limited contents because of the qualification.

  21. 21.

    S. Bennet, “Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram—Social Media Statistics and facts 2012” All Twitter, http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-media-stats-2012/472135. (last visited 10 May 2017).

  22. 22.

    https://www.facebook.com/about/basics/ (last visited 10 May 2017).

  23. 23.

    E. W. Sholl, “Exhibit facebook: the discoverability and admissibility of social media evidence,” 16 Tul. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop. 207, Fall 2013; Bradley R. Johnson, Untagging Ourselves: Facebook and the Law in the Virtual panoptic on. 13 T.M. Cooley J. Prac. & Clin L. 185 (2011).

  24. 24.

    In practice, there are more approaches for the government requesting information, such as requests from non-US law enforcement or emergency requests from law enforcement. See J. Brunty & K. Helenek, Social media investigation for law enforcement, Elsevier, 2013, pp. 77–85.

  25. 25.

    People v. Harris, 945 N.Y.S.2d 505(Crim. Ct. 2012).

  26. 26.

    18 U.S.C. §§ 2701–2712 (2006).

  27. 27.

    United States v. Warshak, 631 F.3d 266 (sixth Cir. 2010). “It is the first case from the United States Circuit Court of Appeals to explicitly hold that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in the content of e-mails stored on third party servers and that the content of these emails is subject to Fourth Amendment protection.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Warshak (last visited 10 May 2017).

  28. 28.

    United States v. Meregildo, No. 11 Cr. 576(WHP), 2012 WL 3264501 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 10, 2012).

  29. 29.

    See T. A. Hoffmeister, Social Media in the courtroom- A New Era for Criminal Justice?, p. 77.

  30. 30.

    See J. Brunty, & K. Helenek, Social Media Investigation for Law Enforcement, p. 81.

  31. 31.

    People v. Harris, 945 N.Y.S.2d 505(Crim. Ct. 2012).

  32. 32.

    “Neither this Court nor any member of it has ever expressed the view that the Fourth Amendment protects a wrongdoer’s misplaced belief that a person to whom he voluntarily confides his wrong doing will not reveal it.” See Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293 (1966).

  33. 33.

    H. Nieenbaum, Privacy in Context: Technology Policy and the Integrity of Social Life, Stanford Law Books, 2009.

  34. 34.

    H. Nieenbaum, Privacy in Context: Technology Policy and the Integrity of Social Life, Stanford Law Books, 2009, p. 138.

  35. 35.

    H. Nieenbaum, Privacy in Context: Technology Policy and the Integrity of Social Life, Stanford Law Books, 2009, pp. 145–147.

References

  1. B.R. Johnson, Untagging ourselves: facebook and the law in the virtual panopticon. 13 TM Cooley J. Prac. & Clin. L. 185, (2011).

    Google Scholar 

  2. D.J. Solove, The future of reputation: gossip, rumor, and privacy on the internet (Yale University Press, 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  3. E. Bakshy, S. Messing, L. Adamic, Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook. Science. 10, 1126–1160 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  4. E. Praiser, The filter bubble: what the internet is hiding from you (Penguin, 2011).

    Google Scholar 

  5. E.W. Sholl, Exhibit facebook: the discoverability and admissibility of social media evidence. 16 Tul. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop. 207, (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  6. H. Nieenbaum, Privacy in context: technology policy and the integrity of social life (Stanford Law Books, 2009).

    Google Scholar 

  7. J. Brunty, K. Helenek, Social media investigation for law enforcement (Elsevier, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  8. J. Grimmelmann, Saving Facebook, 94. Iowa L. Rev. 1137, 52–59 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  9. L.M. Gladysz, Status update: when social media enters the courtroom. 7 I/S: J.L. & Pol’y for Info. Soc’y 691, (2012).

    Google Scholar 

  10. P. Wallace, The psychology of the internet, new edn. (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  11. S. Bennet, “Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram—Social Media Statistics and facts 2012” All Twitter, http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-media-stats-2012/472135. Accessed 10 May 2017

  12. T.A. Hoffmeister, Social media in the courtroom- a new era for criminal justice? (Praeger, 2014).

    Google Scholar 

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shih Hsin University School of Law, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chih Ping Chang

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  1. Chih Ping Chang
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Correspondence to Chih Ping Chang .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Engineering, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Ankara, Turkey

    Tansel Özyer

  2. Department of Computer Engineering, National Institute of Technology Rourkela, Rourkela, Odisha, India

    Sambit Bakshi

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Reda Alhajj

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Chang, C.P. (2019). Searching on Facebook Through the Lens of the Concept of Privacy. In: Özyer, T., Bakshi, S., Alhajj, R. (eds) Social Networks and Surveillance for Society. Lecture Notes in Social Networks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78256-0_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78256-0_8

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