Privacy concerns with social networking services
Since the arrival of early social networking sites in the early 2000s, online social networking platforms have expanded exponentially, with the biggest names in social media in the mid-2010s being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. The massive influx of personal information that has become available online and stored in the cloud has put user privacy at the forefront of discussion regarding the database's ability to safely store such personal information. The extent to which users and social media platform administrators can access user profiles has become a new topic of ethical consideration, and the legality, awareness, and boundaries of subsequent privacy violations are critical concerns in advance of the technological age.[1]
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. Privacy concerns with social networking services is a subset of data privacy, involving the right of mandating personal privacy concerning storing, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Social network security and privacy issues result from the large amounts of information these sites process each day. Features that invite users to participate in—messages, invitations, photos, open platform applications and other applications are often the venues for others to gain access to a user's private information. In addition, the technologies needed to deal with user's information may intrude their privacy.
The advent of the Web 2.0 has caused social profiling and is a growing concern for internet privacy.[2] Web 2.0 is the system that facilitates participatory information sharing and collaboration on the Internet, in social networking media websites like Facebook and MySpace.[2] These social networking sites have seen a boom in their popularity beginning in the late 2000s. Through these websites many people are giving their personal information out on the internet. These social networks keep track of all interactions used on their sites and save them for later use.[3] Issues include cyberstalking, location disclosure, social profiling, third party personal information disclosure, and government use of social network websites in investigations without the safeguard of a search warrant.
History[edit]
Before social networking sites exploded over the past decade, there were earlier forms of social networking that dated back to 1997 such as Six Degrees and Friendster. While these two social media platforms were introduced, additional forms of social networking included: online multiplayer games, blog and forum sites, newsgroups, mailings lists and dating services. They created a backbone for the new modern sites. Since the start of these sites, privacy has become a concern for the public. In 1996, a young woman in New York City was on a first date with an online acquaintance and later sued for sexual harassment, after her date tried to play out some of the sexual fantasies they had discussed while online. This is just an early example of many more issues to come regarding internet privacy.[4]
In the past, social networking sites primarily consisted of the capability to chat with others in a chat room, which was far less popular than social networks today. People using these sites were seen as "techies" unlike users in the current era. One of the early privacy cases was in regards to MySpace, due to "stalking of minors, bullying, and privacy issues", which inevitably led to the adoption of "age requirements and other safety measures".[5] It is very common in society now for events such as stalking and "catfishing" to occur.
According to Kelly Quinn, “the use of social media has become ubiquitous, with 73% of all U.S. adults using social network sites today and significantly higher levels of use among young adults and females." Social media sites have grown in popularity over the past decade, and they only continue to grow. A majority of the United States population uses some sort of social media site.[6]
Response to criticism[edit]
Many social networking organizations have responded to the criticism and concerns over privacy brought up over time. It is claimed that changes to default settings, the storage of data and sharing with third parties have all been updated and corrected in the light of criticism, and/or legal challenges.[176] However, many critics remain unsatisfied, noting that fundamental changes to privacy settings in many social networking sites remain minor and at times, inaccessible, and argue that social networking companies prefer to criticize users rather than adapt their policies.[177]
There are suggestions for individuals to obtain privacy by reducing or ending their own use of social media. This method does not succeed, since their information is still revealed by posts from their friends.[178]
There is ambiguity about how private IP addresses are. The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled they need to be treated as personally identifiable information if the business receiving them, or a third party like a service provider, knows the name or street address of the IP address holder, which would be true for static IP addresses, not for dynamic addresses.[179]
California regulations say IP addresses need to be treated as personal information if the business itself, not a third party, can link them to name and street address.[179][180]
In 2020, An Alberta court ruled that police can obtain the IP addresses and the names and addresses associated with them, without a search warrant. An investigation found the IP addresses which initiated online crimes, and the service provider gave police the names and addresses associated with those IP addresses.[181]