Visible Privacy: Norms, Preferences, and Strategies

“Just don’t post it”: The Problem with Individualizing Privacy

Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, explained his approach to privacy during an interview with Maria Bartiromo of CNBC: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it” (Google CEO on Privacy 2010). This presumption that privacy is primarily about hiding “bad” information is also echoed by the advice adults give teens when discussing online privacy. Young people often are told not to do the “bad” thing in the first place, and they most definitely should not post anything online that they wouldn’t want everyone to see. Research repeatedly and consistently demonstrates that young people care about their privacy (boyd 2014; Livingstone 2008; Madden et al. 2013); nonetheless there is an assumption that they reveal too much information about themselves online—information that “horrifies their elders” (Henley 2013). The practice of sharing information that adults do not understand gets misinterpreted as a disregard for privacy. Sharing information about oneself and one’s peers often gets constructed in pathologizing or demeaning ways. For example, taking “selfies” (photos of oneself) is often described as narcissistic and self-centered behavior (Giroux 2015; Gregoire 2015) and is sometimes even linked to addiction, body dysphoria, or mental illness. The psychiatrist David Veal has been quoted as saying “Two out of three of all patients who come to see me with body dysmorphic disorder since the rise of camera phones have a compulsion to repeatedly take and post selfies on social media sites” (Keating 2014). This rhetoric is reflective of the harm-driven expectations of risk that we have seen throughout this book. These risk-driven narratives emerge frequently in medical, social, legal, and educational debates. The persistence of pathologizing and demonizing young people’s social media practices makes it far easier to blame young people themselves instead of holding society responsible for violating their expectations.

For example, administrators at a Georgia high school wanted to teach students about the risks of sharing information about oneself online. To demonstrate their point, they gave a presentation to parents and students during which they displayed a photo that the administrators perceived as over-sexualized of a student, Chelsey Chaney, wearing a bikini. The photo was presented as an example of what kind of photos young people should not share online. It had been taken while the young woman was vacationing with her family; she had then posted it to her Facebook account, which was visible only to friends and friends of friends. By using the photo and the young woman’s full name, the school—though aiming to teach about privacy—had violated her expectations of privacy by quite literally using the photo as an example of what not to do on social media. (Here I do not mean that the girl should not have shared a photo of herself in a bikini, but rather that the school should not have used the image as an example at a school assembly.) Chelsey Chaney sued the school for breaching those expectations. She explained: “I understand people are going to look at it, that I put it out there, but for a school administrator to target me as an example of a bad child?” (Judge tosses part of lawsuit … 2013). Her point is valid: it’s one thing to re-share the photo to make a point, but it’s another to shame a high school student in front of the entire school (teachers, students, and parents included). An attorney representing the school responded that he “finds it perplexing that someone is suing for millions for a picture she herself posted on the internet” (Rudra 2013).¹ What the lawyer and school failed to understand was the context in which the student shared the photo (a photo that was arguably not inappropriate): it was shared on Facebook for her friends and family members to see, it was not intended to be shown to the entire student body and their parents within a context that was intended to shame the student. The gendered nature of shame also needs to be emphasized. It is not inappropriate for a teen girl to be in a bikini on the beach with her family. It isn’t likely that the school would have used a photo of a teen boy in his swimsuit on the beach to illustrate the point. The shaming and harm-driven rhetoric that aims to regulate teens’ practices are often gendered and reify expectations that teen girls (and their adult-perceived sexuality) are inherently inappropriate and at risk online (see chapter 2).

Throughout the entire incident, the school held Chelsey Chaney responsible and blamed her for having posted a “sexy” picture of herself online. From the school’s perspective, the expectation was that once the photo has been shared in any context, it was justifiable for others to re-share it in any other context. In attempting to teach students about the value of privacy, the school actually perpetuated the dangerous ways in which students (or anyone) should not act. As one social media theorist explained, “So obsessed with young women’s sexuality, the school becomes preoccupied on the women in the photos, echoing that now familiar refrain that shames and blames the victims of privacy violations instead of focusing on the violators” (Jurgenson 2013). The adult expectation was that sharing anything online—in any context—negates an individual’s right and expectation to privacy. In a talk to tech industry professionals, danah boyd (2007) drew an important distinction between public and publicity, arguing that just because something is publically accessible does not mean it is intended to be publicized: “Publicizing their material without their knowledge is a way of taking control away from them.” Although boyd was talking about technical affordances of the platforms that publicize users’ content (a point I will return to later in this chapter), the statement is applicable to other situations, particularly when adults re-appropriate young people’s content in a different context. This is but one example of the ways in which popular discourses of risk and expectations of privacy falsely assume that privacy is an individualized norm and practice. Focusing solely on the individual dismisses and ignores the collective and contextual role that peers, adults, institutions, and networks play in shaping the contours and expectations of privacy.

Although young people do have a responsibility to manage what they choose to share online, including with whom and where they share information, they cannot control what platforms, institutions, and peers intentionally and inadvertently reveal about their identities and relationships. Discourses of visibility need to take into account how the disclosure of particular identities opens up some teens to greater risk for discrimination and judgment. Arguably, privacy expectations must expand beyond individual strategies for hiding “bad” information about oneself, but must also consider how collective peer contexts and various stakeholders are also responsible for respecting teens’ privacy, norms, expectations, and online practices. What the participants in this book express is that they seek opportunities for networked online identity explorations and interpersonal relationships that are contextually situated (rather than the converged and public identity of Facebook) and they expect networks and adults to acknowledge and respect their practices and norms. As a strategy for maintaining privacy, they employ differentiated practices that allow them to use different media for different aspects of their lives and with different people. In doing so, their conceptions and expectations of privacy tend to differ from how parents, teachers, the law, and social media sites understand privacy. Analyzing what sites and apps participants are using and for what purposes provides productive entry into considering and analyzing young people’s expectations of identity, privacy, and visibility; their expectations and practices highlight the need to approach privacy from a collective—rather than an individualized—perspective.

Doing Identity

From a discursive perspective, youth is often constructed as a transitional period of “becoming”—a period in which young people explore and experiment with different modes of expression and identification (Gabriel 2013). “Identity,” David Buckingham explains (2008, p. 8), “is something we do, rather than simply something we are.” Judith Butler (1990) explains that identity is something that is performed; such a perspective comes from an understanding that identity is not fixed, but rather is fluid. In other words, identity is never accomplished, but rather is constantly evolving and is constantly negotiated throughout a lifetime. Such a perspective understands that identity is contextually situated—individuals do not possess one true identity, but rather different identities are articulated and performed in different contexts. For example, a young girl constructs and performs the identity of “daughter” at home with her parents and constructs and performs the identity of “student” at school and that of “friend” with her peers. The girl is not any more authentic nor fake by articulating or performing any one of these identities at any given time, but rather each are authentic manifestations of her identity as they are experienced and expressed in particular moments, contexts, and roles.² We must also keep in mind that, far from being an individual choice, young people’s understanding of their identities is largely constructed from the social and cultural cues in their environment, as well as from their embodied sense of self.

Since the 1990s, teens have used the Internet as a tool for exploring interests, experimenting with identity, and fostering a sense of community. Early Internet research is often critiqued for constructing a false dichotomy between offline identities as opposed to online identities. There was an inherent assumption that what happened online was somehow less authentic or real than what happened offline (Hine 2000; Walker 2000). Even today the language of “real life” is used to indicate something that happens in the physical world as opposed to the virtual world; but both are “real” in their articulation and effects. Over time, we have come to understand that the Internet provides a means through which we can express ourselves and communicate with others; thus the interactions are no less real or meaningful just because they are mediated. As Butler’s theory of identity explains, if identity is constantly performed, rather than a fixed component of who we are, then both offline performances and online performances become equally significant and authentic. The platform or social context through which identity is performed does not discredit the performative expression of self. Even fantastical or fabricated instances of identity performance still reveal insight into how an individual desires to be perceived.

Take for example, 18-year-old Regina, whom I met via her blog in 2007. She attended an all-girls school and fell in love with her best friend, a young woman whom she referred to simply as “A.” Because her mother and her friends disapproved of her lesbian relationship, Regina had to keep her relationship with A secret. Regina started a blog so that she could have a place to discuss her own sexual identity (which she admitted was still very confusing to her). Regina found a supportive community of girls online. Her dedicated readers left comments and offered her advice about how to handle her situation at home and at school. They would also suggest other blogs written by people who were in similar situations, thus she connected to a much larger community of lesbian and questioning girls her own age. Here, within the confines of the online world, Regina found both an outlet for sexual expression and identity negotiation, as well as a supportive community that was not available to her in the offline world. The support she found online influenced her offline life, just as her offline life was the impetus for starting a blog in the first place. Regina went to great lengths to keep her blog a secret from her friends and family members (and even her girlfriend)—she used a pseudonym and an alternative email address, she did not publicize the blog, nor did she let her family know she had a blog, and she did not use the blog to communicate with friends from her offline life. Though the blog was publicly accessible, it functioned as a secret and private space for Regina and was an authentic aspect of her life.

As Regina’s example demonstrates, understandings of private and public are contextual—though she chose not disclose her sexuality in her embodied interactions with friends and family members, on the Internet she could be public about her relationship and her emerging sexuality. Revealing her sexuality online does not preclude Regina from desiring to keep her emerging sexuality private at home and at school. In other words, her having come out in one context does not mean that Regina should have no expectations of privacy in other contexts of her life. Additionally, what Regina’s story highlights is the extent to which using digital media as spaces for expressing one’s identity inevitably leads to questions of privacy. We know that sharing private and sensitive information about ourselves is essential to building healthy relationships, and we all choose to disclose particular aspects of our identities on a daily basis, sometimes willingly and sometimes less intentionally. However, we also understand and assess the risks and benefits of such disclosures and make decisions based on the context of the interactions and relationships. For Regina, the benefits of coming out on her blog—and the community the blog provided her—outweighed the potential privacy risks, but did not negate her expectation of privacy in other spaces.

As we discuss privacy we must keep in mind that identity and privacy are intricately linked. We willingly and unintentionally give up private information continually, but as we assess expectations of privacy we must always take into consideration the context in which information was disclosed, by whom, and for what purpose. Additionally, privacy is more complicated than merely being “not public”; rather, privacy—both online and offline—is a matter of degree, context, visibility, and control (boyd 2014). Privacy is not a simple binary of “private” and “not private,” although laws, policies, and expectations (as the Georgia high school example) often tend to reify this simplistic binary. The binary, of course, ignores the complicated nuances of privacy practices and contextualized understandings of identity performance.

Expectations of Privacy

In the physical world, visibly marked cues such as closed doors and crowded spaces delineate expectations of privacy. Online, however, cues that might delineate such expectations often are rendered invisible or are more open to interpretation. This does not mean they disappear completely; it just makes things more complicated. Just as the physical world has architecture that helps us dictate privacy norms (e.g., gendered bathrooms with stalls, doors, locks, and so forth that dictate how the space is to be used, by whom, and with what degree of privacy), the online world has its own architecture in the form of code. Lawrence Lessig (1999) has proposed that the architecture of the Internet (i.e., the code) is one of the most important modes of online regulation. Code essentially dictates what we can and cannot do on any given website or app. For example, some websites require you to create an account, a log-in name, and a password before you can access the information. This is the architecture of the site as determined by the code. Other websites might allow you to leave comments, but they do not enable you to upload a video or embed an image with your comment. Again, this is the architecture of the site and is the intentional coding design decision. Much like the architecture of the physical world, the architecture of a website provides context cues about our expectations of privacy. If a website requires you to log in before leaving a comment, you probably are more aware that your comment is linked to an online identity or account, and thus you will have different expectations of privacy than you will have if the site allows you to leave an anonymous comment without creating an account. If you post something to your Facebook profile, you should be aware that it is more visible than if you share the same information in a private Facebook message to a friend. The message feels more private than a post, but of course it is still accessible to people working at Facebook, reminding us that the same information can be simultaneously private (from the perspective of social privacy) and remain accessible in other contexts. It is the dualistic nature of online information as both private and public that makes online interactions, disclosure, and expectations so capricious.

The complexity of understanding privacy online is due in part to the fact that cues aren’t always neatly distinct or visible. The architecture of platforms means that we are not always aware of who has access to online information in the same way we might be in the physical world. Five characteristics of networked publics that render the spaces distinct from the physical world have been identified by boyd (2010): online information is persistent, searchable, replicable, scalable, and locatable. This makes it particularly difficult to assess expectations of privacy and to express different identities in delineated contexts. These dynamics lead to what boyd describes as “context collapse”—moments and practices in which social, spatial, and temporal boundaries converge, often in invisible, unpredictable, and uncontrollable ways. Again, this is not wholly unprecedented or unique to the virtual world, as boundaries certainly collide in the physical world as well, yet the delineations and effects can be more subtle or even invisible online. Additionally, we often have less control of the contexts and visibility of information when we are online.

As an example of context collapse in the physical world, consider what happens when a student on a date runs into a teacher or when a mother overhears her daughter having an intimate conversation with friends in her bedroom. In each of these examples, an individual is articulating and expressing a particular identity in a particular context and the unanticipated presence of someone outside of that context disrupts the social setting and expectations. However, in the physical world we often are aware when these distinct contexts overlap and can adjust our sense of identity and behavior accordingly—for example, we see our teacher and adjust our behavior, or we hear our mother and decide to whisper or change the subject. When we experience context collapses online, they can be more complicated because it is be easier for our audiences to remain unknown and invisible. And because our interactions are archivable and searchable, it can be more difficult to imagine all current and future audiences. When we share something online, we have an intended or imagined audience in mind (Marwick and boyd 2010), yet the information persists and can be replicated and accessed in contexts other than the one we intended and imagined. The complications of identity performance and privacy expectations are disrupted and amplified to some degree when our interactions and disclosures are tracked, saved, and replicated in different contexts.

Networked Visibility

I often hear both adults and teens repeat some iteration of “If you’re careful about what you share online, then you have nothing to worry about.” As has been noted, this attitude falsely constructs privacy as an individual decision and strategy. It neglects to take into consideration how our behaviors and interactions are networked and how the visibility of our social networks reveal a lot about us that we cannot control. Further, it reduces a complex issue—identity expression and speech—to an issue of mere individual responsibility, and thus dismisses the questions of ethics and boundaries altogether. What is absent from these discourses and narratives is the extent to which our online networks—that is, to whom we are connected—inadvertently reveal a lot of seemingly private information about us. Alarmingly, users of social media platforms have little knowledge of or control over what their networks make visible and thus reveal about their identities, associations, and interactions, yet networks themselves generate, augment, and manage visibilities.

To illustrate how networked identities mitigate visibility, I conduct an exercise each semester with undergraduate students enrolled in my Digital Media and Society course. I choose a friend from my own Facebook network, then view his or her friends. I take a screen grab of their friend list, capturing twelve random friends in their list (my friend’s image and name are not revealed). I then show the screen grab to my students and ask them what they can infer about my friend from twelve of their friends.³ At first students are a bit uncomfortable or reluctant, but with a little prodding they start articulating their assumptions. “Well, most everyone is black, so maybe the person is black.” Others will use names to make assumptions: “Well, it seems a lot of people have Spanish-sounding names, so maybe the person is from Mexico or an immigrant.” Others will take note of their age: “There’s a lot of pictures of kids and families, so maybe the person is in their thirties or forties.” I showed screenshots of twelve friends of one of my gay friends, and it did not take long for a student to accurately guess the friend was a white gay male in his thirties. Students have been able to accurately identify which friends are Muslim and which are Jewish. Others will identify where people work or where they received their education and take guesses about the person’s occupation and education level. One student noted that one of my friends had friends from all over the country and guessed that the friend might have moved around a lot. Sure enough, the friend was a professor who had lived in four states in seven years. I’ve had students accurately guess a friend’s industry—social work, news reporter, and teacher—on the basis of the friend’s connections. Interestingly, students even make assumptions about political affiliations and ideologies, even in the absence of overt clues. One student accurately commented: “All their friends are white, and kinda look alike. A lot of them have kids or pictures with their partner or spouse. I don’t know, it just makes me think she’s a conservative white woman.” And this assumption was eerily accurate.

Students are amazed they are able to so accurately identify so much information about someone on the basis of only twelve photos from their public Facebook connections. Occasionally they will guess something inaccurate, for example, assuming a person is a college student when in fact the person is a 50-something professor. And occasionally they are not able to make many assumptions at all. However, the wrong assumptions are just as significant, maybe for some even more significant, than accurate guesses. Regardless of the confirmed accuracy, our list of visible connections serves to reveal aspects of our identities and networks. This is a matter of privacy that extends beyond the kinds of information we deliberately choose to reveal about ourselves online. These assumptions can be used to make decisions about us in a variety of contexts that are beyond our control and without our consent or even knowledge. But this is the nature of networked privacy: we can exert some control over the information we intentionally choose to share online, however, we have limited control over what our social networks reveal about us. Networked visibility makes evident that we cannot reduce privacy to that of individual responsibility, but rather privacy itself is networked.

Similarly, we need to avoid couching privacy within a debate of “hiding” information. As Daniel Solove notes (2007, p. 764), constructing privacy in terms of hiding information “myopically views privacy as a form of concealment or secrecy” and ignores the complexity of privacy as a concept that is also about agency, transparency, control, context, and disclosure. My in-class exercise reveals the extent to which privacy is networked, but also the extent to which privacy far exceeds concerns of hiding “bad” information. Clearly, there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim, or pregnant, or gay, or black. However, these aspects of our identities can lead to blatant or unintentional forms of discrimination. Those who argue that we can and should be the only ones responsible for our own privacy speak from a highly privileged and protected subject position. The need for greater privacy protection is not merely about the ability for us to hide bad information about ourselves. It is imperative that privacy be understood within the context of a society that values, privileges, and protects some identities—or rather devalues, exploits, and discriminates against some identities—more than others. While we do have an individual responsibility to be careful what we share online, understandings of online privacy must evolve to encompass the public and networked nature of visibility, power, and privilege.

Deliberate Disassociation

What is important to note for marginalized youth, is the extent to which their localized and racialized identities, interests, and communicative practices—in other words, their cultural capital—is often misinterpreted, policed, and decontextualized within white hegemonic society (Carter 2003; Giroux 2009; Mendoza-Denton 2008). Because teens navigate different social contexts that include differentiations across age, class, and ethnic boundaries, it can be difficult for marginalized teens to simultaneously manage privacy and fit in with the “right” group. One way this is played out among marginalized young people is via a practice of disassociation; that is, some participants employ deliberate strategies to disassociate themselves from peers whose identities could lead to negative (adult) assumptions about their practices and preferences.

For example, Miguel and his twin brother Marcus (14 years old, undocumented Mexican immigrants) explained that they were anxious about an informal reunion with friends from elementary school because “whenever me and my friend check them on Facebook, they’re all, like, ghetto and stuff, and I’m nowhere near that.” Countless times throughout the study students explained the ways they attempted to distinguish themselves from peers they perceived of as “ghetto,” a word used by virtually all participants—regardless of ethnicity—to primarily describe black peers and Mexican-Americans who were “too loud,” were “trashy,” or tried to “act hard” and “start fights.” These perceptions are embedded within the broader racialized and geographical context of Freeway High and go beyond their use of social media and are outside the scope of this chapter. Nonetheless, their anxieties about race, class, and reputation were heightened, articulated, and made visible in online spaces.

Jack (17 years old, white), an upwardly mobile senior, explained that he blocked people who used “made-up names” on Facebook. While browsing his Facebook one afternoon, he pointed out a Facebook user with a made-up nickname. “See, there we go, Jamie Suckafree (notwitdabullshit)—that’s a ghetto name. People are starting to do it on Facebook. I don’t even know who that is. See, that’s why I blocked that person.” There is even an entire Tumblr page dedicated to “ghetto Facebook names.” As you can imagine, the page mocks not just the names but the users as well, and includes many derogatory assumptions based on the users’ ethnicities. As the trend of creating “ghetto” Facebook names became more popular during the time of our study, it was not uncommon for participants to explain they had blocked or unfriended such people. They often explained it was because the profiles were “annoying” or because they “didn’t know that person anymore.” However, as Marcus and Miguel also explained, they were anxious about being associated with such people. In a networked society, our relationships are made visible and reveal information about us that can be taken out of context and thus used against us. Some participants blocked and unfriended people with whom they did not want to be publicly associated. Their anxiety was rooted in a concern that adults and other peers would jump to conclusions or make assumptions about them on the basis of their peers. The legitimate concern served to police their relationships, as well as expectations and performances of (often racialized) identities. Although Miguel, Marcus, and Jack were concerned about how others might perceive such connections, and understandably so, there is nothing inherently wrong or risky about connecting with peers who express identities in these ways. The use of false names can also be read through a lens of visibility strategies that made it more difficult to search and identify those teens’ profiles. But Miguel, Marcus, and Jack were aware of the extent to which others might make assumptions about them on the basis of these visible connections—assumptions they did not want others to make. At a time when more than three fourths of employers use digital media to screen and monitor employees (Webb 2014), strategies of deliberate disassociation and self-censorship might prove beneficial; the visibility of their connections and practices open up opportunities for discrimination based on misunderstandings of cultural and social capital.

In and of itself, self-censorship is not a bad strategy either. Social norms often dictate that we regulate what we say and how we act in particular spaces and with particular audiences. As with the previous discussion of identity, we intentionally and unintentionally articulate different identities within different contexts. Such norms serve a purpose and can be beneficial in creating and maintaining environments of respect, professionalism, and so forth. However, social norms also speak to normative values, expectations, and assumptions that ought to be continually called into question. Not all norms are beneficial, for example, gender norms can serve to limit how comfortable individuals feel expressing particular interests (e.g., a little boy is not “supposed” to play with princess dolls). For young people, social network sites are often considered peer-driven spaces for socializing. Yet when adults and authority figures surveil their practices, it opens up opportunities for their behaviors to be misinterpreted. Gabriela (16 years old, Mexican-American) expressed anxiety about how her online profiles might be interpreted by adults, specifically future employers or college admissions offices:

I just don’t know what they’re actually looking for. So, is something wrong with what I post? [Are they going to think] “Oh, this person likes this type of music, or they look like this,” and then judge me? So, it worries me. It concerns me that something I posted isn’t what they want or something.

Undoubtedly we should encourage young people to think critically about the kinds of information they share online, and even with whom they visibly connect online, but we should also be wary of rhetoric that penalizes young people for expressing themselves in ways that challenge or disrupt adult expectations of appropriate identity expression and peer connections.

None of the participants I got to know used “ghetto” names on Facebook, yet the practice was not uncommon, particularly for black and Hispanic peers. How might such names be interpreted by employers? What assumptions might adults make about teens that choose to express their identities in such a way? What about teens who do not articulate such identities but are connected with peers who do? The practices are situated within a context of peer relationships, as well as a particular racial and ethnic identity. Miguel and Marcus expressed anxiety and ambiguity about the ways they interacted with “ghetto” friends and were trying to navigate their own identities and friendships. Practices of deliberate disassociation can be an effective strategy for negotiating identities, however when social norms enact power and put pressure on youth to disconnect or self-censor, we need to make sure we are critically questioning the normative values of such assumptions and practices.

Unintentional Visibility

Facebook has changed the social media landscape in a lot of ways. As the most popular social network site, with 1.39 billion monthly active users as of December 31, 2014 (Facebook Newsroom, 2015), it has the power to shape social media norms. The architecture has undergone a lot of changes in its first eleven years; these changes directly influence conceptions of privacy and identity by shaping our understanding of “sharing.” In the early days of Facebook, sharing was understood as something that was done between and among friends. However, the increasingly commercialized and public aspects of Facebook have broadened the concept of sharing beyond just interpersonal relationships and has been expanded to indicate a more public and commercial sense of sharing. On page 54 of her 2013 book The Culture of Connectivity, José van Dijck explains that “Facebook wants its preferred meaning of sharing, implying complete openness and maximum exchange of data with third parties, to become the ‘shared norm.’” It is in the financial interest of Facebook to encapsulate the meaning of sharing within an economic framework that allows the platform to capitalize on users’ sociality.

Facebook’s archival nature, combined with the increasing publicness of interactions, works to create a visible and seemingly static understanding of identity. The social network site has become a portal to many other websites and apps—from shopping, to news, to games, and more—which works to create a persistent and semi-cohesive online identity. The architecture and the norms work together to attempt to create “one identity” across the web (van Dijck 2013b). Ivan Montiel (2012) argues that Google has also encouraged users to construct one consistent identity, which he refers to as “persistent identity.” As Google has created and acquired different apps and services (among them Google+, YouTube, Vidmaker, Softcard, and Android), it has also created one portal that allows users access to all their expanded services using only one log-in, one profile, and one password. Beyond merely streamlining users’ experiences and aiding in convenience, it also shapes social norms and expectations of identity, visibility, and privacy. The commercial impetus that underpins corporate acquisitions and pushes for a unified identity across platforms is often incompatible with users’ social practices and preferences on the sites.

The push toward a persistent and cohesive identity is contradictory to the way young people have historically constructed communities and identities—both online and offline. For example, since the 1990s blogs have been popular spaces for youth to play with different modes of identity, to participate in disconnected online communities, to engage and communicate with strangers, and to experiment with different interests and networks. Until recently, norms dictated that interactions could be pseudonymous and disconnected from offline embodied identities (as was the case for Regina, mentioned earlier in this chapter). It was not too difficult to create different and disconnected profiles that articulated different identities and then to pop in and out of different networks. These practices and platforms were reflective of and embedded in the evolving and experimental states of identity construction, particularly for adolescents. However, Facebook has increasingly rendered identities and interactions public and visible in a way that not all young people appreciate or are even able to understand. As I reveal, participants in this book tend to find the archival and public nature of Facebook to be oppositional to the more fluid and strategic nature of their communication practices and expressions of their identities. These differences in expectations are clearly articulated by exploring young people’s reactions to a change in Facebook’s architecture.

Public Liking

In 2010, Facebook changed its interface with the introduction of the Like button. As described by Facebook, the Like button is designed to “give positive feedback and connect with things you care about.” Initially users could Like pages run by commercial entities such as brands, celebrities, musicians, TV shows, and corporate restaurants. They served as a way for users to express interest in something and articulate particular aspects of their identities via their profile pages. The Like button is also one feature that Facebook uses to determine what users see in their news feeds. Although Likes were never private, they initially functioned in a more private manner. For example, you could Like a band or a celebrity, but this information was not published in your news feed. In order to know that your friend had Liked a band or a television show, you would have to click on your friend’s profile page and then view her Likes section to see all the things she had liked. Later the Like feature was added to users’ individual posts and photos; it became a way to acknowledge your friends’ updates without having to leave an actual comment. Initially these interactions were visible on the individual updates, but they were still not publicized or made visible in the news feed.

However, in 2011 Facebook began publishing Likes in users’ news feeds, so you could easily and unintentionally see what your friends had been doing on the site and beyond.⁴ Rather than going to your friend’s page to see that Sarah had Liked Mark’s post about his vacation, your news feed would publish a story alerting you that “Sarah Likes Mark’s photo album Vacation at the Beach.” This interface also pushed popular content (i.e., a post that has received a lot of likes or comments) to the top of your news feed. This meant that if a lot of your connections were engaging with Mark’s vacation album it was more likely to show up at the top of your feed (even if it was not recent or new). This architectural design and interface functioned to heighten the visibility of particular posts and interactions among your Facebook network. If that post was someone announcing a new job, then that might be a positive feature for the user (i.e., the network was made aware of the big announcement and the individual received a lot of validation and praise). However, if the post receiving a lot of attention within the network was derogatory, gossipy, or controversial (as determined by the peer groups included), this could have a negative effect on the user and their network because it continued to draw attention to something that might be causing strife within different social circles.

Cassandra (18 years old, biracial) explained how the publishing of Likes (the new feature that had just been introduced during the week of the following conversation) created problems in her group of friends.

Cassandra:

Before you could see who Liked so and so’s picture, but it never told you on the news feed who Likes so and so’s picture. If you went to someone’s picture and looked at all the Likes you could see who Liked it, but now in the news feed it’s, like, yesterday I saw this girl Liked this boy’s picture and she has a boyfriend and she Liked this boy’s picture and it said “Kara Liked Devonte’s picture.” Ten minutes later it said “Devonte Likes Kara’s picture.” I guess they haven’t seen the new Facebook but, this girl has a boyfriend and they started Liking each other’s pictures back and forth every 10 minutes and the boyfriend was, like, “What the hell?” Usually you wouldn’t—for instance—that girl’s boyfriend wouldn’t go to Devonte’s profile and check all his pictures to see if his girlfriend Liked it, but now it says it on the news feed so he can just automatically see that.

So he did say “What the hell?” Where did he say that? On Facebook?

Cassandra:

Yeah. He wrote on her wall and he was, like, “Why are you liking all these guy’s pictures?” She was, like, “What?” They figured out finally and they were talking about it but that’s just crazy.

You just noticed it?

Cassandra:

It was the first thing I saw when I logged on, it was at the top. I just ignored it after that. It was just crazy because you couldn’t have saw that before, but the whole news feed said “Kara Liked Devonte’s photo” and then “Devonte Liked Kara’s photo”—it was, like, for 15 photos.

Wow. That is definitely something. Do you feel like you don’t want to get involved in that?

Cassandra:

No. I don’t care. I wasn’t going to say anything or anything—everyone could already see it because he posted it on her wall—he didn’t message her “What the hell?” — he wrote “What the hell?” on her wall.

Why would Kara’s boyfriend write about that on her wall instead of calling her?

Cassandra :

I think that’s just the kid coming out in him. I don’t know. I would think someone more mature and older would just message their girlfriend and be, like, “I just saw you Liked — you had a picture Like war with this random guy.” He just wanted to put her—I guess just, like, put her out there and let everyone know that he saw it and he’s doing something about it—you know?

Does that happen a lot?

Cassandra :

Oh, yeah.

Cassandra went on to discuss other examples about how people used Facebook to deliberately cause problems or air grievances in a public space: “People do that a lot on Facebook—put business out there that nobody cares about. I don’t even know—just dumb things. … That’s the only reason I don’t like Facebook.”

As the interaction between Devonte and Kara demonstrated, publicizing Likes added an additional dimension to the ways Facebook broadcasted information to users’ news feeds. Devonte and Kara probably were aware that their Likes weren’t private, but, as Cassandra explained, Kara’s boyfriend was unlikely to have noticed the Likes before the change in Facebook’s interface. Even if Kara’s boyfriend had noticed that she had Liked Devonte’s photos, it may not have been interpreted in the same way were it not for the timing, which Facebook rendered visible. In other words, seeing that Kara has Liked a lot of photos is one thing, but seeing that Kara had Liked a lot of photos in a short time span was interpreted differently. The changes in Facebook’s interface and algorithms changed the context in which users could Like information by rendering their pseudo-private interactions highly visible. One student explained: “We all creep on each other’s Facebooks, but you’re not supposed to let people know that. But Liking something really old is kinda embarrassing. … Other people now see it too, it makes it obvious you were creeping.” The public nature of Liking something and the intentional ways it gets publicized to mutual friends disrupted participants’ expectations of how to appropriately interact on Facebook and challenged their taken for granted understandings of social norms.

Invisible Algorithms and Misunderstood Intentions

Facebook’s algorithms fail to account for the overall sentiment of the popular and trending posts. Just because a post receives a lot of interaction from people in one’s network, does not necessarily mean users want to see the post. Furthermore, publicizing Likes on the news feed can have other privacy implications that disrupt expectations of visibility and context. For example, you might be cautious about sharing and commenting on an overtly political post. However, if you Like a news story that has been posted to another friend’s wall, or you leave a comment on an organization’s post, those comments and Likes are made visible to the broader community. These seemingly private interactions—Liking a story about marriage equality, for example—can inadvertently reveal information about you that you did not intend to share on Facebook. In this way, connecting with a friend or Liking something posted by an organization can feel semi-private, it is an interaction between you and an individual post; however, the information is often made visible on the site and in a context that is not visible to you or easily understood. This is because Facebook’s terms state that once you Like something, you have “consented” to Liking all future posts from that organization, what Sandvig (2014) refers to as “Like recycling.” Like recycling is also how ads are generated in your feed; they appear to be endorsed by your friends, but the process is a bit more invisible and deceptive. The visibility of your interactions is determined by invisible algorithms, not your intentions. For example, let’s say Sarah’s friend posts a rant about a local senator and provides a link to a news story from Fox. If Sarah Likes her friend’s rant, both of their other friends might see future ads in their news feed saying “Sarah Likes Fox News.” In context, what Sarah was Liking was her friend’s rant about the senator, but her Like is re-appropriated and shared in a completely different context stripped of her original intent.

This is also problematic because of the multiple levels of publicness and privacy levels that are operating on Facebook at any given time. For example, Jada (16 years old, black) kept her Facebook mostly private, meaning the only ones who could see what she posted were people she had added to her network (i.e., people she has friended). However, others in her network could choose to make their posts or profiles public.⁵ This means that what she chose to post on her profile should only be visible to select friends, but her actions on Facebook were public and were shared with everyone to whom she was connected, including friends of friends and family members she kept on a restricted list. When Jada Liked a photo posted by a friend with a public profile, her Like and comment became visible to everyone in her network, despite her own privacy settings. This was also true of all Pages that she interacted with—for example Comedy Central—because Pages have more open privacy settings than she did. In other words, the more public settings override her restrictive private settings. Van Dijck (2013a, pp. 49–50) explains: “All features added to Facebook have resulted in mostly invisible algorithms and protocols that, to a great degree, control the ‘visibility of friends, news, items, or ideas. … Facebook’s interface foregrounds the need for users to be connected, but partly hides the site’s mechanisms for sharing users’ data with others.” The differences between privacy settings—Jada’s in comparison with Comedy Central’s—can have detrimental effects in terms of disclosure, identity, and privacy. Most the teens I got to know were cautious of what kind of information they deliberately shared on Facebook (and other social media platforms) such as what photos they posted, where they checked-in, the language they used (for example, many chose not to cuss), etc. However, they did not give as much critical and deliberate thought to everything they actually did on the site. Clicking Like feels more like a private action than re-sharing the story. Although the Like is intended to be somewhat public—a way to acknowledge a joke for example—participants did not intend for the interaction to be broadcast to their entire network (as demonstrated by Kara and Devonte’s “Like war”). According to boyd (2014, p. 57), “There’s a big difference between being in public and being public. Teens want to gather in public environments to socialize, but they don’t necessarily want every vocalized expression to be publicized. Yet, because being in a networked public—unlike gathering with friends in a public park—often makes interactions more visible to adults, mere participation in social media can blur these two dynamics.”

Consider Michelle, an 18-year-old biracial lesbian. Before coming out to her family, she employed different privacy strategies on Facebook that would allow her to connect with and communicate with her friends, while also ensuring that particular family members did not find out that she identified as a lesbian. She did this by creating lists that restricted the kinds of information family members could see, such as photos that she posted to Facebook. However, because Facebook renders interactions visible, and because others in her network had different privacy settings than she did, Michelle’s seemingly private conversations and Likes can inadvertently reveal information about her sexuality. For example, she might Like another friend’s post or leave a comment on a news story that could unintentionally reveal something about her sexuality that she intended to keep private. Because these interactions feel private, she understandably believed these interactions were contained to that specific friend or that isolated news story, however because of “Like recycling” her actions were re-appropriated in a different context and had the potential to reveal information about her identity she did not expect to share with her entire Facebook network. Individuals can only exert limited control and agency over what is revealed about them via Facebook. Regardless of what they deliberately choose to share on Facebook, the public nature of their interactions, combined with “Like recycling” makes it increasingly easy for someone to infer users’ ideologies, sexuality, religious affiliations, politics, and so forth, even if they do not deliberately reveal this information on their own posts and profiles. Michelle and other teens are increasingly aware of the fact that they have limited control over what their networks reveal about them; they are increasingly frustrated by changes in Facebook’s interface, and as a result are limiting their use of Facebook in favor of other social media platforms.

Further complications are added by the fact that Facebook does not make it easy to see your own Likes, nor is it easy to un-Like something once you have Liked it. Unlike your list of friends, which you can fairly easily access and manage (e.g., unfriend someone to whom you no longer wish to be connected), it is much more difficult to see every page and organization and story and post and photo you have Liked. Your name and image will show up in your friend’s news feeds (“Sarah Likes Fox News”) without your explicit knowledge, and those same ads are not showing up in your ownnews feed or on your own profile. In fact, Facebook makes it exceptionally difficult to see and manage how your name and account are used across the platform and the opt-out options are not easily accessed either. Participants were mostly unaware that when they see ads with friends’ endorsements, these “endorsements’ may not have been explicit or intentional. Further, when they Like a funny joke or meme, they typically do not pay much attention to the organization or page that initially shared the joke. For example, as one organization documented, people who Liked the conservative group For America later had their name associated with a post arguing that “Obamacare must go!” Those users were upset that Liking one story was a license to endorse something completely unrelated later (DesMarais 2012).

From an everyday social norm understanding of Facebook, Liking one post by an organization is not typically understood as consent to support and promote every future post from that organization. In other words, there is a disparity between how teens (and adults) conceptualize their interactions on Facebook and how Facebook understands privacy and social norms. What I am advocating for is a better and more accessible way for users to manage their Likes. Facebook could be more transparent about how Likes are publicized across the site and offer easier and more accessible options for un-Liking something. The platform could provide users with a greater knowledge of and control over how their names are used in other people’s news feeds. Just because someone Liked a news story from five years ago, it should not mean that that users’ identity should be forever linked to the organization or brand.

Resistance Strategies

Some participants embraced the changes to Facebook’s interface, policies, and algorithms and others were unaware or more apathetic about them. However, many young people in this study were bothered by these changes and resisted the move toward a public, consistent, and converged identity. Undoubtedly there are a lot of reasons why teens may be using Facebook less frequently, but I believe one reason has to do with their expectations to perform more fluid, ephemeral, and disconnected online identities. Facebook connects disparate social networks—from childhood, high school, work, family, church, etc.—into one space and collapses those contexts. The platform does not consider the different ways people interact with different groups, the fluid nature of identity, or the variation in social norms that fluctuate across different contexts. In other words, the interface ignores the “contextual integrity” of how young people intend to interact and share information. Rather than attempting to manage one cohesive and acceptable identity, some young people are choosing to use different social networks to articulate different aspects of their identities and connect with different communities.

I consistently hear young people explain that they are reluctant to express opinions on Facebook. A young black female explained to me: “If I post something that I don’t think is a big deal, someone is going to make it political. Or, like, read into it or something. Then, like, there’s people on my Facebook fighting with each other and they don’t even know each other. I see this all the time. No, I just don’t even post stuff anymore, it’s not worth it.” Time and time again, young people explained that they preferred not to post personal information or opinions on Facebook because they could be misinterpreted or used to start fights between the different networks on their Facebook. How then do young people manage their interests, passions, identities, and networks online? If you were to look at Facebook, one might mistakenly jump to the conclusion that young people don’t use social networks to express opinions or beliefs. Much of what you may see are inside jokes, silly videos, and humorous memes being passed around and shared. You will see a lot of people making plans, posting photos of their friends, or discussing quotidian social interactions. However, while teens (like adults) do these things, there is a lot more going on via social media than there may seem to be at first glance.

When I first met Gabriela, she used Facebook daily but expressed ambiguity about the site. She had deleted it from the home screen of her phone and removed the bookmark from the browser on her laptop. She explained that she checked Facebook a lot out of habit, but then found that she was often “frustrated, annoyed, and bored” with what she saw. “I think Facebook is kind of dying but slowly.” Instead, she preferred to use Twitter and Tumblr for different purposes. This allowed Gabriela to tap into different online communities, use different accounts for different purposes, and maintain relationships in a more private way. For example, Gabriela and her boyfriend shared a Tumblr account that was just for the two of them—no one else had the link. While she and her boyfriend also sent text messages throughout the day, she said she liked Tumblr because they could share images and song lyrics and quotes with each other: “Like, if I saw a picture that reminded me of him, I’d re-blog it and he could see it later.” Tumblr was a way for Gabriela and her boyfriend to foster intimacy and communicate, but in a more private way than Facebook typically afforded.

Additionally, Gabriela used two Twitter accounts—one for friends and one for following musicians. When asked what she liked about Twitter, she explained: “It’s kind of becoming the new Facebook a little bit. But not that many people really like it. And so, I just like what I do. I basically just post whatever’s on my mind just rapidly. It goes faster. And so, people don’t have to follow you. If they want to follow you then they know that they’re just going to see it. And on Facebook it’s not like that.” Twitter does not require a reciprocal relationship. Gabriela liked that people could choose to follow her if they wanted, but she did not have to also see their posts. Other students expressed similar attitudes. Antonio (17 years old, Mexican-American) explained: “If people don’t want to see what I post, then just don’t follow me.” This is quite different form the norms of Facebook. Breaking off a connection—unfriending someone—has a lot of social implications that speak to the nature of the friendship. It can cause a lot of problems within groups of friends and is imbued with different meanings and interpretations that are not conveyed on Twitter. Additionally, Facebook’s Terms of Service explicitly prohibit users from creating multiple accounts. Rather than creating different accounts for different purposes, Facebook users are expected to negotiate complicated and ever-changing privacy settings.

Tumblr and Twitter streamline privacy management by allowing users, and even encouraging them, to create different profiles and different accounts. This allows young people to not only keep their networks separate (the equivalent of performing different identities in different public spaces and contexts in the physical world), but also invites experimentation. Young people can explore different interests and articulate different identities within the same platform, but via different accounts. Tumblr in particular affords anonymity and exploration. “By providing an outlet where people can be anonymous and detached from their actions,” Montiel argues (2012, p. 24), “users are able to make mistakes and experiment.” Particularly for young people, who are caught between and betwixt different subject positions, identities, roles, and imagined selves, the ability to experiment is significant and valuable. Tumblr provides a space for young people to express themselves without the same risks that have become common on Facebook. To reiterate Gabriela’s quote from the beginning of the chapter: “Everyone keeps their Tumblr private usually because they post, like, actually what they’re going through or what they feel.” The community-driven and personal aspects of Tumblr facilitated anonymity and experimentation that was not feasible on a site such as Facebook.

Additionally, the private nature of Tumblr afforded Gabriela and other young people the freedom to express themselves, but without a concern for their reputation. Gabriela continued: “I tend to stop caring about what people think and so I post what I feel. If I get sad then I post what I’m sad about. I have trouble saying things out loud. I have an idea how to say it in my head, so I write it on Tumblr. It helps me process my thoughts.” In terms of identity and privacy, Gabriela’s comment that she “stops caring what people think” speaks to some teens’ preference for platforms that invite personal expression in spaces that are more or less invisible to their peers, but afford visibility within a different context. Gabriela chose to express herself on Tumblr because she valued the feedback she received from the community. She enjoyed processing her emotions via writing and on a blog. However, unlike on Facebook, the expressions did not become part of her online identity repertoire. The public and publicized nature of Facebook encourages young people to consciously construct identities for the approval of one’s network. Whereas Tumblr, as a more private blog, encourages individuals to express themselves for the sake of expression and connection, rather than as part of reputation management.

Conclusion

Returning to a framework of visibility, discussions of privacy are often couched in harm-driven expectations about the risks of making personal information overly accessible. Understandably adults worry that young people might intentionally or inadvertently reveal too much information about themselves. Personal information opens up opportunities for misinterpretation and has the potential to harm future opportunities. Certainly we are justified as a society to be concerned about what kinds of information young people are sharing, with whom, in what spaces, and for what purposes. However, we need to also call into question who is deliberately and intentionally accessing information about young people, in what spaces, and for what purposes. The burden of responsibility should not lie solely on the shoulders of young people. That is, while they have a responsibility to be smart about what they share online, and while educators and parents ought to help young people make smart decisions about what they share online, we need to also question how those with power are using digital media to surveil and exploit young people’s online practices.

In a lot of ways, media panics about predators and privacy have been effective in educating young people about the risks of oversharing. In 2013, research reveals, 60 percent of teen Facebook users kept their profiles private (Madden et al. 2013). Likewise, qualitative research continually indicates that young people employ various strategies for managing and maintaining their privacy (boyd 2014; Marwick and boyd 2010; Vickery 2014). My conversations with and observations of teens suggest that the overwhelming majority took some measure to protect their privacy and were aware of the risks involved in oversharing online. And, as has already been noted in this chapter, young people employ different and deliberate strategies to maintain privacy within certain spaces and keep information from certain audiences.

However, if we frame sharing and visibility only as a risk—and an individual responsibility—we miss valuable opportunities to help young people construct positive online identities. More and more often, young people explain to me that they are no longer using Facebook, have little to no interest in LinkedIn, use Twitter for entertainment but not for networking, and keep their Instagram and Tumblr accounts completely private. College seniors who are about to enter the workforce tell me they are reluctant to create digital portfolios and construct a positive online identity. They consider these deliberate disassociation practices to be smart strategies for protecting their privacy, and they are correct. However, I am concerned that the privacy pendulum has swung too far in the direction of protection. I see evidence that young people are so concerned with minimizing risks that they are likely to miss out on the opportunities that can also accompany visibility (see chapter 5). Such practices of hiding, self-censorship, and opting out risk further marginalizing the voices and experiences of non-dominant youth.

Reflecting on her own online privacy strategies, Inara (17 years old, Mexican-American) explained: “Sometimes I really don’t care. I’m a grownup. I think I should be allowed to say what I want to say, and not have people judge me.” Inara voiced frustration that she could not use online spaces to express herself in the ways she preferred; instead she had to constantly negotiate her intended audience with potential imagined audiences. While this was not a bad strategy in and of itself, for Inara and others like her this often meant just not posting or sharing anything in a public space in the first place. In other words, it was easier to remain hidden than to negotiate visibility. In an age of increasing surveillance, it is no wonder young people (and adults) are cautious about creating public online identities. In 2015, an Illinois law made it legal for school administrators to access students’ social media sites; since then, administrators have gone so far as to require students to share passwords with administrators (Schwarz 2015). Schools in north Texas (and probably elsewhere) employ police officers to actively monitor all forms of communication that are transmitted over the school’s Wi-Fi (source: author’s personal communication with school district). This is, of course, in addition to other modes of surveillance in which schools block students’ and faculty’s access to websites, apps, and services (as discussed in chapter 3). This blatant surveillance further reinforces differences in power, access, and transparency. Those with the least amount of social capital and power are often subjected to greater modes of surveillance. For example, minimum wage workers are more likely to be subjected to drug testing before employment than are educated white-collar workers (Gilliom 2001). In response to the Illinois bill, Kade Crockford, director for the Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union, said: “You have to think about the school-to-prison pipeline—who will be affected by this legislation, who will be arrested in school as a result of information discovered by administrators on their phones? It’s kids of color, poor kids, kids with intellectual and learning disabilities. That’s what we see across the country” (Koebler 2015). Crockford is absolutely correct: the Internet opens up new modes for increased surveillance, particularly of those without power. That is why marginalized young people are seeking out spaces that afford more privacy, more ephemeral forms of communication, anonymity, and disconnectedness, which are powerful and effective tools for evading surveillance. Snapchat and private Instagram accounts provide safer opportunities for exploration, experimentation, and peer interactions without the prying eyes of administrators, employers, and law enforcement. At the same time, the invisibility of their interactions and practices also serves to reify their already marginalized and often silenced subject positions, experiences, and concerns. The Internet and social media afford young people opportunities to participate in networked publics. It affords opportunities for teens to network with those with power, to organize for social change, to share their unique experiences. However, these opportunities can be severely limited by harm-driven expectations that perpetuate fears and heightened risks associated with sharing. As the law professor Samuel Bagenstos cautions (2013, p.14), we need to be “especially concerned that social equality is threatened when one class of people—defined by wealth or income—systematically gives up the choice to engage in those activities that are especially important to defining and understanding the self.” Digital media are important for “defining and understanding the self,” yet self-censorship and practices of disconnectedness can paradoxically protect privacy and evade surveillance while disproportionately further marginalizing nondominant populations.

Real social change in protecting young people online will not occur until adult society quits playing “gotcha” with young people’s privacy practices, and instead respects the contextual integrity of young people’s practices and preferences. Like adults, young people need spaces for interpersonal and private communication and spaces for networking and public participation. They need spaces where they feel safe to express unique identities—identities that adults and society may find concerning. But they also need spaces to participate as citizens and engage in public discourse about their concerns and experiences. And they need adults to help them understand the difference, to help them navigate different levels of visibility.

Lastly, we need platform policies and architecture that respect the differences in these spaces; we need policies and interfaces that aim to not only profit from teens’ participation, but also strive to understand and respect their unique practices and expectations. Because young people have begun to abandon Facebook, and because other platforms have become more popular, it may seem odd that I have spent so much time analyzing Facebook in this chapter. However, Facebook is the social network site with the longest history, and through it we can analyze how changes in architecture and business models affect discourses of risk, visibility, and privacy. Despite its waning popularity—or perhaps because of its waning popularity among young people—we can learn a lot about how teens’ preferences, expectations, and practices shape and are shaped by commercial platforms that structure their engagement. For all its ills and benefits, Facebook has provided us with great insight into the tenuous relationship among commercial platforms, young people’s practices, and expectations of visibility and risk. I worry about self-censorship and disconnected practices that further silence and marginalize those already occupying positions of disadvantage in our society. Understandings of privacy must balance strategies for protection with strategies for helping young people embrace visible networked opportunities.

6 Visible Privacy: Norms, Preferences, and Strategies

“Just don’t post it”: The Problem with Individualizing Privacy

Doing Identity

Expectations of Privacy

Degrees of Visibility

Networked Visibility

Deliberate Disassociation

Unintentional Visibility

Public Liking

Invisible Algorithms and Misunderstood Intentions

Resistance Strategies

Conclusion

Notes