Last week I walked into my American Politics lecture late, which has upwards of 100 students. After maneuvering the awkward late-entry situation, I did what any sensible student would: sprint up the stairs to the back of the lecture hall as quickly and inconspicuously as possible. And after sitting down in the top row and getting settled, the view made me think “hmm, this is interesting.” From what I could see, every other person in the lecture hall had a tab open for Facebook.

Are we really that obsessed with Facebook that we cannot bear to go an hour at a time without it? Assuming that lecture professors are not so exaggeratedly boring to warrant this behavior (although I cannot be sure), my best guess is yes. Yes, we can’t bear to be apart from our precious Facebook accounts for the length of a class.

I experience a similar feeling with my cell phone. In most cases, it doesn’t enrich my life and won’t help me. Frankly, many of the interactions that occur through my phone could stand to wait an hour. But I can’t avoid that sneaking suspicion that the one time I forget it in my dorm a crisis of apocalyptic proportions will occur that only I can solve, and which must be solved in under an hour. My iPhone becomes synonymous with the PODUS’ Red Phone. I hope I’m not the only one.

Phones and computers are social networking tools. Perhaps there’s a deeper social psychology at play here: I once heard a theory that religion has been sustained in humanity because it is evolutionarily advantageous. The theory explained that regardless of the reason, the fact that people amassed together for a common goal bonded them toward other common goals, such as safety, shelter, and having enough food, which was key to survival. Humans have been selected for evolutionarily to be social creatures, to the extent that it often feels like as much of a “basic need” as the aforementioned common goals. Is Facebook a substitute for one of our basic needs for social interaction? And can we really not live without such a need for an hour?

That said, I am just as guilty of going on Facebook in class. For our seminar this usually means checking my privacy settings and our group page, but for other classes this could mean keeping up with a digital political debate or making sure no embarrassing pictures of me have been posted in the past 10 minutes. Or, it could be used as a distraction from those notoriously boring lecture professors…

I recently read an article that had to do with a data breach that took place on Facebook.  Basically, the article discusses how a “security enthusiast” named Suriya Prakash was browsing through Facebook on his phone when he discovered an option called ‘Find Friends’  (This option was also recently available on instagram, but no longer is, which goes along with the rest of this blog post). This option enabled him (and anybody else who know about it) to “search a random phone number to view someone’s full profile”, which is really quite scary to think about.  Facebook eventually caught on to what was happening, and blocked the script he was using that allowed him to view hundreds of accounts just by entering a persons’ phone number.  This option is no longer even available, to the best of my knowledge, and it is because Facebook is making attempts to improve security and privacy measures on the social networking site.  It is, however, very scary that this was even an option in the first place.  Mobile Facebook was basically making anybody’s account available to the world, which should never have even been an option in the first place, but luckily this was taken care of rather quickly.  Although it was taken down quickly, it was still an option for long enough that thousands of accounts could have been accessed.  This article talks about how just one person was able to access hundreds of accounts, so imagine how many other people would have been able to do the same thing while this ‘Find Friends’ option was available on Mobile Facebook.

Another thing I came across while reading this article is something that we have discussed a few times in class.  “Facebook’s privacy settings are confusing so most people haven’t adequately protected themselves”.  This is very true, as we all have agreed for the most part, and it is something that Facebook needs to work on to make their company and site more user friendly, and catered to what people want, which is privacy from the rest of the world.  Facebook probably makes it difficult to follow their privacy settings at first and has the defaults as public as possible because they want as much information to be shared as possible, but I think it is up to the users how their information is made available and who it is available to.

Here’s the link to this brief article.  <http://hothardware.com/News/Facebook-Confirms-Massive-Data-Breach-and-Vulnerability/>

According to a recent poll, most voters would prefer Barack Obama as a Facebook friend. Based on the results of the Esquire and Yahoo! News survey, of the 1,000 respondents asked, 48% replied that they would pick Barack Obama as their Facebook friend, as compared to 25% who would want Romney to be their friend. This seems to be an indication of the like-ability of the respective presidential candidates – for another 54% of the respondents said that they would prefer to take a road trip with the President compared to 29% who would prefer to hit the road with Mitt Romney. These results, overwhelmingly favorable for Barack Obama, are not indicative of how the population feels about who would make a better president – on that question, the public is much more narrowly split. Today’s Gallup Poll finds that registered voters are divided 50% for Obama and 45% for Romney with a 1% margin of error.

The fact that voters would prefer to road trip or have Barack Obama as a Facebook friend, despite maybe not preferring him for president, is a fascinating statement about how voters see Facebook. To them, Facebook appears to be a social space – one that they would prefer to fill with people whose company they enjoy, not necessarily who’s policies they support.

This is also indicative of a successful social media strategy employed by the Obama Campaign. For the idea is to be hip on Facebook. In many ways, it’s similar to the practice social advertising that we discussed on Tuesday – users are more likely to click on an advertisement if a friend is associated with it. And individuals are much more likely to like the Obama or Romney campaigns on Facebook if they get the impression that all their friends are on board. Last year, I had the opportunity to interview a former Clinton White House communications operative about the changes social media is making to the way that campaigns work. He referred to social networks as having a “virtual water cooler effect.” As he described it, campaigns can involve people in their operations on social media by making casual connections via their friends. In other words, if you see that your Facebook friends are sharing links or memes about Barack Obama on Facebook, it’s akin to having a casual conversation with a coworker by the water cooler in the office. You learn about it from people you know (much better than conversing with an unknown campaign operative over the phone), and you are much more likely to jump in.

As part of this strategy, campaigns use social media to highlight the more popularly appealing sides of candidates. Barack Obama’s Facebook Page is home to compelling family photos and personal stories of meeting with supporters. These endearing images are much more likely to spread across social networks, engendering support from friends as they go.

Facebook’s “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” also known as their Terms of Use. At 7,000 words and 7 pages long, as anyone actually read it?

I’m about to, and lets see what we find. Choice quotes below.

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook,

Well that’s good to know!

…you specifically give us the following permission…you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).

So, even though we ourselves still own the data, we let Facebook do anything they want with it. This includes any other data on other websites with a “Facebook Connect” or “Like” button, as technically it’s “in connection” with Facebook. Note that the license granted to Facebook is transferable (to ?), non-exclusive, licensable, worldwide, and royalty-free; it gives Facebook a lot of flexibility.

Now after a few weeks, I don’t think any of us are surprised at what our data is used for. Facebook has so far already used our data to advertise for our friends and target advertiser’s ads to us.

This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

A few years ago, Facebook used to still keep deleted data; glad to see they’ve changed that policy. This point generally echoes the general rule applying to the entire internet: anything online cannot be deleted (It does have offer the silver lining that if the picture has not been “shared,” it can be deleted).

You will not collect users’ content or information

I found this statement especially ironic due to the fact that Facebook is doing the same to us. Then again, we are using Facebook as a free service, so it’s definitely not an equal trade.

On a separate note, there was an earlier blog post about how the National Archives are logging everything on the Internet, including all tweets. In a sense, these rules actually help prevent others from abusing people’s privacy on Facebook. Of course, Twitter is also fundamentally different, as everything on that site is public, so they don’t need to go out of their way to address the private aspects of individual users.

Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way.

I understand why Facebook would want un-anonymous discourse on its site by forcing everyone to use their real name, but part of me also detects a small undertone that this is especially valuable for advertisers. Companies don’t want to advertise to a fake profile, and by ensuring that everyone who views their ad is a real person, makes the ads all that more valuable.

In addition to Facebook’s Terms of Use, they have a whole section dedicated to Data Use Policy (probably mandated by that settlement) that describes in detail of all of the different ways Facebook can use your data. Some of the most eye-catching are:

We receive data about you whenever you interact with Facebook, such as when you look at another person’s timeline, send or receive a message, search for a friend or a Page, click on, view or otherwise interact with things, use a Facebook mobile app…We receive data whenever you visit a game, application, or website that uses Facebook Platform or visit a site with a Facebook feature…

While this is not surprising given Facebook’s role, it is surprising how Facebook is able to obtain data from so many different sources. In fact, Facebook is not the only website that does this. Any link on most websites usually sends information to servers indicating that this particular user in this area of the world clicked on this particular link at this particular time. Facebook is not the exception (more on this next week).

So after going through Facebook’s Terms of Use and Data Use Policy, nothing particularly egregious comes out. Facebook can use any information posted on their site for any reason at all unless deleted, and needs people’s real names to preserve the integrity of the site. Compared with the Terms of Service a few years ago, this is definitely an improvement, but it does reveal what Facebook is allowed to do with your data.

As our social circles migrate from real-life interactions to blocks of text and images on a website, there are a myriad of subtle nuances that affect us in our everyday lives. A specific implication of social networking I plan to focus on in this post is the issue of “friends.” What constitutes a friendship between two individuals, and what consequences do online actions have on relationships?

A “friend” has been a pretty easily definable word – until now. In elementary school, I would classify my friend circle as people I enjoyed being around and could hang out with. Strangers would be people I wouldn’t see as often or converse with. Online, however, the line between the two is blurred – there are people on Facebook who friend request you, yet you’ve never met them in your entire life. You both may share a small number of mutual friends, but that’s about as far as your relationship goes. So, if you accept your friend request, what category does this individual fall under? He’s neither a friend nor a stranger, but I would conjecture that he’s more of the latter. In essence, Facebook has been desensitizing the intimate connections that all discrete individuals share with others. Nevertheless, there exists an interesting phenomenon where behavior on a social networking site still has enormous implications on relationships.

Conventions of friendship have transferred to social media – declaring couples, friendships, apologies, etc. Society now gives people the power to break off friendships online, without even a word to the former friend. Is it proper for Facebook to facilitate a culture where friends are disposable? “Defriending” another person seems to be an awfully simple way to terminate a connection. Interestingly, society has devolved to allowing bonds to be controlled with the click of a button. This movement can be further investigated and other sociological effects can be pinpointed. For example, your interactions with others over Facebook can be used to infer your inner and outer social circles – social media is not only cheapening relationships, but appears to be even replacing its conventional form. A recent study showed that Americans are more likely to know their online friends’ names than their neighbors – a striking comparison between the virtual and real world. With such a transformation in social policy, one can only wonder what Facebook will revolutionize next.

Facebook’s use of psychological testing has created a conduit into the brains of its users. Before, these tests were done in labs, were costly, difficult to generate a substantial test group, and had many limitations. However, facebook can tap into 23 million unaware users, testing normal behavior, in a natural setting, without deception or reactivity; thus, severing as a tool for amazing research opportunities that will allow greater efficiency for businesses. One of the questions brought up in lecture was whether “we” believed that these tests were ethical. Our lecturer brought up the idea that the test subjects were clearly unaware that they were being tested. Overwhelmingly no one really answered the question and unanimously we agreed that it was perfectly ethical. This response can be attributed to two reasons. Firstly, we have talked about this topic in abundance and I think a lot of us were “all talked out”. And secondly, I think we have come to the conclusion as a class that everything we do on facebook is basically a test and nothing is private. Facebook is a social networking service. If you are that paranoid about security and if you are writing things you really don’t want to leak out, then this is not the site for you. Also, I think there is a recognition that facebook is a business and has the ambition to transition into a research powerhouse like Google. Without these tests facebook can’t determine the best way to use it’s information to get its users to click on advertisements or “like” a certain business or product. Professor Felton brought up the notion of right of publicity.  Celebrities that buy a certain product cannot become spokespeople unless that business gets permission/creates a specified agreement or contract with the celebrity. Applying this to social networking, your friend did not directly consent to have their name attached to a certain product: “Steve likes Cheerios”. And in this case Steve is famous to you. However, I fine faults in this argument. I believe Steve gave up his right to publicity when he liked the product on facebook. Steve is aware that anyone of his friends can look at his page and see that he liked that product.  Steve clicked “like” because he wants to let all of his friends know he likes cheerios. Inadvertently Steve has now become the new face on the cheerios box.

I used to be one of the many people who believed online privacy is not really an issue. After all, as long as I think before I post, how can my privacy ever be compromised? Then, a few months ago, I read an article about how Facebook tracks its users off the site. My immediate thought? “Not cool, Facebook.” As much as I enjoy using Facebook, I do not appreciate the idea that Facebook knows exactly what I am doing outside of Facebook site. My first thought was to log out every time, but it turns out that Facebook is capable of tracking even logged-out users. I’m sorry, Facebook, but this is officially creepy. If you are like me and would like what you do outside of Facebook to stay outside of Facebook, here are a few easy steps you can take. Note that I will be focusing primarily on Facebook, but many of these tips are applicable to any online entities.

Step 1: Set aside a different browser just for Facebook (and other social networks)

Note: If you are on a mobile device, you can simply use the default Facebook app and not log in using Safari. You may also follow the steps here with a secondary browser, like Google Chrome.

The only way to stop Facebook from tracking your browsing history is to cut off the social network from the rest of the web. One very easy method of doing so is to have a separate web browser just for Facebook. Note that I meant browser, not browser window. Clicking “new page” in Internet Explorer brings up a new browser window, not a different browser. If you do not have another browser installed, I would recommend getting either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Remember to use this alternative browser only for Facebook.

You are not yet done. Even though you have shifted your Facebook browsing experience to a different browser, as long as Facebook’s cookies still exist on your default browser, Facebook can still spy on you. Therefore, we have to first clear all the cookies from your browser. This will not result in any data lost, but you may be logged out of sites that you have opted to stay “signed in.”

If you are on Internet Explorer: Follow this tutorial from Microsoft.

If you are on Google Chrome:

To access the settings page, either click on the three bars icon on the top right and choose “Settings” or paste “chrome://chrome/settings/” into the URL bar. Scroll down, and click on “Show advanced settings…” Scroll down until you see “Privacy,” and click on “Clear browsing data.” Check only the third and the fourth boxes (cache and cookies), and proceed to clearing the data.

If you are on Mozilla Firefox:

Click on “Tools,” and then “Clear recent history.” Choose “Everything” for time to clear, and click the “Details” button. Go ahead and uncheck everything except for “Caches” and “Cookies.” Clear your data.

If you are on Safari:

Click on the “Safari” button and choose “Preferences.” Go to “Privacy.” Click on “Remove All Website Data…”

Your default browser is now officially uncontaminated. You can continue using the browser normally and switch to the secondary one when using Facebook. Note that this method actually kills two birds with one stone by breaking all the Facebook apps that track your actions on other sites (i.e. Yahoo Reader, Spotify).

Step 2: Do NOT Connect with Facebook

We’ve all seen the virtually omnipresent “Connect with Facebook” button. Clicking on the button allows one to use his Facebook account on a third-party website instead of creating new account. It also allows easy sharing on the website’s content (for example, an article) to Facebook. Unfortunately, in return, Facebook will know exactly what one does on that website. If you value your privacy, do NOT click on the button. If you already made the Facebook connection, stop it immediately. Go through the hassle of creating a new account. If you see something you really must share, copy and paste the URL to your Facebook (on the alternate browser). This little inconvenience is a small price to pay for privacy.

Step 3: Dislike the “Like” button

Similar to the “Connect with Facebook” button, many websites, especially news websites, have a Facebook “like” button next to their contents. The purpose is to allow the user to easily indicate interests in that particular content. Under the same logic as the previous point, this action is to be avoided. Instead, if you are really interested in an article and want to share it, paste the URL into your status update.

Step 4: Create a Public Email

One of the reasons why some would prefer to use their Facebook account in place of making a new account on a third-party site is that they do not want to give out their emails. After all, nobody wants to deal with spams in their inboxes. However, as mentioned in Step 2, this method brings too much compromise. Instead, make a new email for public use. This will be the email that you are not afraid to give out to any random strangers. Whenever you sign up for an account anywhere, use this email. If you already have several accounts associated with your current email address, consider making it your public email and create a new private one. This way, your personal inbox is automatically segregated from the spams you receive when signing up for accounts.

In selecting which email provider to use, remember that your public email is naturally more prone to cyber attacks. Consider using Gmail and enabling two-steps verification for the best security.

By following these four simple steps, you have already taken a huge step in protecting your privacy on the Internet. You may also want to take a look at your privacy settings on Facebook for added protection. If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment here or hit me up on Twitter.

Of course, these steps are by no means perfect. There are other ways for Facebook and other Internet entities to spy on you. For this very reason, the best defense is to be careful what you post on the Internet. The Golden rule to remember is that once something goes on the Internet, including Facebook, it is no longer private.

The amount of data Facebook has is almost inconceivable, because Facebook can track so many different aspects of people’s lives. We began the class discussing data we give to Facebook (like gender, birthday, and friends), and whether or not this data should be passed to third party applications. But since then, we have learned about the sheer amount of other data Facebook has, and this continually blows my mind. They have information on our likes and interests, those of our friends, and the advertisements that appeal to us. They are even sent information from partnering sites, like JCrew, about what you look at while logged into Facebook in the same browser.

While this may seem like a lot – an excessive amount even – it is not all. A German law student, Max Schrems, began a campaign against Facebook last year to expose to the world all that they know and track, as well as attempt to change their policies. Using a provision of Irish law, Schrems was able to obtain all of the information Facebook keeps on him (which was 1,222 PDF files). The volume and scope of that data shocked him – and me, upon reading about it.

I suppose maybe I should not have been shocked – all of the information pertains to the individual’s use of Facebook. Still, it is information people do not realize Facebook is tracking and keeping on file.

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This picture for example, tracks the times he logged onto Facebook in a five week span, as well as the times he sent Facebook messages. All of these Facebook messages were also in the PDF files, including messages he had deleted. Additionally, Facebook uses the GPS tracking stored in iPhone photos to pinpoint places people go, even if they choose not to share this location information publicly on Facebook.

As previously stated, I guess I should not be surprised. All of these data sets directly relate to Schrem’s use of Facebook, and he probably consented in some form or another in the terms of agreement. Still, is it necessary for Facebook to track each user so extensively? What value, as far as personalized advertising, does old Facebook messages have? And why are the times he logs onto Facebook stored by individual user, rather than in a large, anonymized data set?

More and more questions like these ones kept popping into my mind until I stepped back for a second to reflect. Was I being unreasonable? Do all companies keep such extensive logs of their clients? The answer, it seems, is no to both of these questions. Using this same platform, Schrems filed a complaint claiming 22 violations of European law. He also began Europe vs. Facebook, a movement that has gained over 40,000 followers who have all contacted Facebook in Ireland requesting all information held on them by Facebook.

He has made some progress educating people about what information Facebook holds as well as making Facebook’s data more available to users. However, there is still much further to go. If it were truly easily accessible, most people in this class would read this post, get curious, and go download their data. Let’s see how many actually do – that will be the true test.

I was scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed yet again, but this time paying more attention to the ads that Facebook decided to show me: two for films similar to Quentin Tarantino’s style, one for Wendy’s, one for a comedian I have never heard of who will be playing in Philadelphia, and lastly one for a yogurt place in West Windsor, New Jersey. Aside from the ads for the films, which Facebook probably decided to show me because I had “liked” the movie Pulp Fiction a couple years ago, I honestly cannot say what piece of information Facebook used in order to decide to display the other ads. I’ve never liked the Wendy’s page, nor that of any other fast food chain for that matter. I’ve never searched for it in the Facebook search bar, and I’ve been to Wendy’s once in my life, not that Facebook has a way of knowing that. Philadelphia and West Windsor are both places near Princeton, but not exactly easily accessible for a college student.

Needless to say I didn’t click on any of the ads. In fact, I’ve never clicked on a Facebook ad in my life. Conclusion: for me, Facebook ads are a terrible way to make money.

Now, many of you reading must be thinking that I’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion. Many would argue that someday, for some product, Facebook will present me with an ad which I will click on, which will have made their entire ad campaign to me up to that point worth it. Or rather, many would argue that even though Facebook ads may not be so profitable for me, they are for the entire social network, when taking an aggregate over a long period of time for lots of people.

However, let us look at the facts. When, even for ads at the onset of social advertising, the clicks per user ratio is one in one thousand, we can see that even though Facebook does make money on ads, this revenue comes solely from the existence of a small proportion of users on the site. How does Facebook make money off of the great majority of its users? It doesn’t.

Facebook makes billions of dollars, but it could generate a more steady, and much more substantial revenue stream if it were to monetize the majority of its users. Consider a pay-per-impression model. Instead of placing ads to the side of the screen where I don’t usually look (I generally pay much more attention to my news feed), Facebook could introduce an option to place ads directly in the news feed, or at the top of the site, where they cannot be ignored. This would greatly increase the value of the ad, thus generating more revenue for Facebook. Each user would now be targeted, since every user would see the ad. While sites with pay-per-impression models like Youtube and Hulu essentially force users to watch an add before being able to consume their content (thus causing most of them to switch tabs or space out), Facebook could find a middle path which increases both ad value and perception.

Now, I am not necessarily advocating this from the standpoint of the user. It would probably create a worse user experience, on balance. But really, would I suddenly leave Facebook, the place in which so much of my social capital has been invested? The answer is “No” for me, as well as for most people. Speaking from the point of view of a Facebook business strategist, I advocate that a prominent, pay-per-impression model is the way to go.

While we’ve touched on the issue of privacy and Facebook during our other issues I wanted to talk more about the idea of privacy for my generation and the recent decade.

First, I want to point out the number of social networking outlets we have. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Weheartit, Livejournal, Foursquare. This small list does not even include underground websites that haven’t reached Facebook like fame. Now, let’s assess the amount of information that we voluntarily release by using these sites. For almost all of these sites save the blogger platforms (Pinterest, Weheartit, Livejournal, Tumblr) you are releasing information that a decade ago would have been a no no.

My point with all of these examples is to point out that while society has become so lax about releasing personal information we’ve also become more intense about how that information is released and what is done with it. This in all fairness is a valid issue. But what I really want to discuss is what this all means for the definition of privacy.

According to the dictionary definition of the word, privacy is “the state of being free from public attention.” Right. Free from public attention — that phrase in itself seems to contradict the very idea of social networking. By the above definition, people who crave privacy should opt-out of using such services (which people in fact do). However, for those people that don’t opt out and still complain about privacy, why do they do that? It’s not because they don’t want to be a part of the social networking culture, they just want to be more protected.

This is why I think our interpretation of privacy needs to be revamped. This is how I imagine the definition of privacy today:

“The state of being free from public attention with the exception of those who I give access to my information.”

A bit wordy but I think it might work. While it may sound as if I am making fun of the idea of privacy (which I am a little), I’m also being completely serious about the idea of changing definitions. We have entered a new era where information is not just kept to ourselves but can easily be available to everyone. Because of this I think we as members of society need to reevaluate what we want in terms of privacy and what we mean as public.