Social Networks, Privacy, Security and the Media
Posted 2/10/2006 10:41:00 AM |
In fact, the other day I was helping an older friend out with her computer, and she asked me to create her a MySpace account. Not being a part of the traditional MySpace demographic, I was slightly amused - until I found out that she was registering the account to monitor her grandchildren's online identities. She had seen a Dateline expose and was very worried about who was contacting her children in these services. Robert Young, who guest-blogged for Om Malik on the topic of MySpace and predators, sums up the concerns social network players are facing: how to protect their brand identity from being tarnished by the userbase.
When I was going through a remarkably lengthy and intricate IRB process to undertake research on social network services, the analogy of a shopping mall was continually brought up. (In case you're wondering, IRB is the Institutional Review Board, the nice folks who make sure your human-subjects research is ethical.) There are a lot of rules for human subjects research, for good reason, and many of them deal with privacy. When an individual is in a social network service, that are "gated" from the outside world - in that sense, it was argued, they may have a reasonable expectation of privacy. However, scale comes into play, and thus the analogy of the shopping mall. A person in a small group may have an expectation of privacy, but when they choose to be around thousands of other people - like in a shopping mall - they lose that expectation of privacy. When a person takes part in a social network, and they expose their profile to thousands (or millions) of people, they also lose that expectation of privacy.
The challenges of privacy and security in social network services are essentially twofold. First, the individual must be sure that the identity information they wish to disclose is secure the social network service. Second, individuals must be confident persons taking part in the social network service are not threats to them; there must be a sense of comfort in taking part in the service. Taken as absolutes, both of these challenges are impossible; no one can prevent someone from copying or improperly sharing your social network profile, and certainly no one can prevent undesirables from joining the service.
Where does this leave us, then? Like the shopping mall, the social network service is an inherently insecure place. We've long been conditioned to expect insecurity in public places; in a sense, we're probably quite comfortable with it. Unlike the shopping mall, however, the dynamics of social networking services are forcing us to learn new behaviors and define new rules. As with any other case, we are adapting our behavior and learning the cultural rules of a new medium.
Expanding on my two challenges of privacy and security, I've noticed folks pointing out two main vulnerabilities for social network services. First is brand devaluation; the theory goes if Dateline runs enough exposes about the bad stuff that goes on in your service, you're toast. Second is user trust; if the users no longer feel comfortable sharing information in the service (like I did when I realized MySpace was letting Google spider my profile), they'll walk. I tend to think there is value to both, but less value than people realize.
Regardless of how bad a social network services' name is (to a certain extent), if they have vibrant community and serve the information needs of their users, they will be viable. Advertisers may walk, but the people will stay. The parents may be all up in arms about MySpace, but like everything else with kids, they will find a way to participate in the community. Social forces are incredibly strong, and those who have spent their lives online are incredibly good at finding enterprising ways to use the services. This is not to say that social network services get a pass - but in a sense, they do. They should be proactive, they should work to protect their members - however, none of these things will guarantee the success or failure of a social network service.
How we participate online says more and more about us; our profiles in social network services, our Google resume, our blog postings and comments speak volumes. All of these things make up a new type of identity, one that was never available to people outside our immediate social network before. As a group, we will continue to define cultural practice for how we disclose this identity over time. In the meantime, expect lots of hand-wringing from the media, various experts, and the like. Lots of them will offer suggestions, helpful pointers and rules. The fact of the matter, though, is that while this is certainly useful, it is moot for the most part; the rules of how we should participate in these new media don't exist yet - we're still defining them.
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