You're not my Friend: A new look at Privacy on Facebook
Posted 1/31/2007 09:49:00 AM |
To answer this question required that I test privacy from the four dominant account types - Undergrad, Grad Student, Faculty and Staff. Using this perspective, I utilized Facebook's random browse technology to sample privacy utilization for 500 undergraduate accounts (total n=2000, in 4 experiments of 500). I wanted to answer a simple question - as an account-holder with no particular ties to the undergrad, what percent of undergrads utilize privacy to protect their account. The numbers that came back were quite interesting, and presented in the following graph.
This graph shows that the 19% of undergraduates protect their account from other undergraduates, 24% percent of them protect their profiles from grad students, 27% of them protect their profiles from faculty, and 29% percent protect their profile from staff. The margin of error on this sample is +/- 4%, so all of these have overlapping confidence intervals with the exception of other undergrads and staff.
I think the important thing to take away from these stats is that the importance of privacy is settling in with students. We're no longer in a paradigm where privacy isn't important to students; they are mindful of their privacy and are acting to protect their interests.
A couple notes on this data. First, it is a gross measure, only accounting for whole-profile privacy. Whole-profile privacy means you cannot browse any part of the profile. Essentially, these users have closed their profile to outsiders completely. It is likely that within the subset of found profiles, many of the students are employing privacy in one way or another (whether it be limiting their profiles, censoring their news feeds, etc.). Also, I am a little skeptical of Facebook's random browse function, so treat this data as a point among many, rather than a definitive point. Finally, this data was collected at UNC, so appropriate disclaimers about generalizability, etc.
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8 Comments: (Post a Comment)
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At January 31, 2007 2:18 PM,
Storygeek said...
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This is shows more concern shown for privacy than ever before but it makes me wonder why undergrads are more open to other undergrads. I wonder who poses a greater threat to using their privacy against them. Is this a perceived threat from “staff” or a real one?
Certainly, a triangulated study with actual privacy violations would be interesting in determining if undergrads are hiding from the appropriate group. Sounds like a project to me
This is shows more concern shown for privacy than ever before but it makes me wonder why undergrads are more open to other undergrads. I wonder who poses a greater threat to using their privacy against them. Is this a perceived threat from “staff” or a real one?
Certainly, a triangulated study with actual privacy violations would be interesting in determining if undergrads are hiding from the appropriate group. Sounds like a project to me -
At February 03, 2007 11:17 PM,
coturnix said...
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Suddenly, there is a bunch of girls on Facebook, only nominally associated with schools, friendig everybody they come up on, joining all the "sexy" groups in a frenzy, showing unusually naked pictures of themselves, and sometimes advertising their "marketing" businesses. This is only in the past day or two. Have you noticed this? Very "myspace-y".
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At February 12, 2007 1:27 AM,
NV said...
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First, I would like to say that I found your post and research interesting. However, I would like to disagree with, and expand on, some of your points. While you seemed surprised by the number of undergrads using privacy controls, stating, “We're no longer in a paradigm where privacy isn't important to students; they are mindful of their privacy and are acting to protect their interests,” your findings show that fewer than thirty percent of students were using these controls. Considering some of the content on many Facebook pages, such as addresses, telephone numbers, and explicit and personal pictures, this seems like far too small of a percentage. Additionally, you focused on how many students blocked other campus-affiliated parties from their profiles- is this really the issue? Since Facebook has expanded to allow just about anyone to join, it seems that the real concern is how many undergraduates are restricting those from outside of their college or university. More specifically, problems have occurred when employers or hiring managers have found a way to access student profiles to view their information.
- NV, http://nvblog-business.blogspot.com/ -
At February 12, 2007 2:12 AM,
Fred Stutzman said...
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NV - thanks for commenting. To your points:
- While you seemed surprised by the number of undergrads using privacy controls, stating, “We're no longer in a paradigm where privacy isn't important to students; they are mindful of their privacy and are acting to protect their interests,” your findings show that fewer than thirty percent of students were using these controls.
Well, Compared to 6 percent only 18 months ago, I do feel this is a significant change. Perhaps more importantly, it cements the trend that users are embracing privacy at higher levels. Indeed, there may be a floor effect on these stats, but still the movement is significant.
- Additionally, you focused on how many students blocked other campus-affiliated parties from their profiles- is this really the issue? Since Facebook has expanded to allow just about anyone to join, it seems that the real concern is how many undergraduates are restricting those from outside of their college or university.
Eh? Everyone is blocked from outside the network. You have to specifically friend someone to see them cross network. Perhaps I'm missing your point? -
At February 17, 2007 2:26 AM,
Thomas Maloney said...
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Hrm, I don't understand the sample size n=2000.
My first thought was that you could have overlap, where one profile would show up in more than one experiment, downsizing your sample.
Also, while I'm a math guy and didn't take stats, I don't understand why you're adding sample sizes from different experiments together.
Another point of confusion for me: I think I understand that you are changing the profile you're testing from to Undergrad, Grad, Faculty, Staff, and then randomly browsing Undergrads respectively. Another interpretation I had was that you were simply sampling the different groups, and therefore eliminating overlap in your samples. The third paragraph implies this latter interpretation is not right, but the second paragraph I thought was kinda vague.
Keep up the good work! -Tom -
At February 17, 2007 7:13 AM,
Fred Stutzman said...
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The 2000 number comes from 4 runs of 500. Statistically, each sub-survey was independent, though there may be overlap between surveys (of course, this is OK, though). I ensured that each of the 4 sub-surveys were sample-no-replace. However, it is possible that person x appeared in studies 1 and 3. Of course, since I am asking an independent question each time, that's perfectly ok.
I used 4 different profiles - thought I was clear about this in my writeup. -
At February 17, 2007 9:37 AM,
said...
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OK- Question though, why not use the same sample of 500 for all 4 questions?
Or, better yet, if you can get 2000 random profiles, ask the same question on that sample? -
At February 17, 2007 11:11 AM,
Fred Stutzman said...
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> OK- Question though, why not use the same sample of 500 for all 4 questions?
I suppose I could do that, but statistically there's no difference.
> Or, better yet, if you can get 2000 random profiles, ask the same question on that sample?
Well, Facebook allows you to browse through up to 500 profiles at a time, so that explains the number. And going from 500 to 2000 would decrease the confidence intervals, but it wouldn't do much else.
