Understanding Privacy in Social Media

Dec 5, 2024

Social Media Privacy Lecture Notes

Introduction to Social Media Privacy

  • Social media platforms have grown to be powerful tools for connection, communication, and business.
  • Examples: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Grindr, Tinder.
  • Growth has led to significant access and influence over users' lives.

Data Collection and Usage

  • Social media companies collect sensitive data: activities, interests, personal details, political views, purchasing habits, and online behaviors.
  • Data used for user engagement and behavioral advertising.
  • Concerns about distortive and discriminatory impacts.

Platform Consolidation

  • Mergers and acquisitions limit privacy-protective alternatives.
  • Personal data vulnerable to misuse by third parties, including law enforcement.

Legislative Recommendations

  • Congress urged to enact comprehensive data protection legislation.
  • Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should act against abusive data practices.

Social Media & Surveillance Advertising

  • Companies like Facebook collect data for microtargeting ads.
  • Known as surveillance or behavioral advertising.
  • Harmful to privacy, information flow, and psychological health.
  • Incentives to increase user engagement and curate monetizable actions.
  • Tracking extends beyond platforms using difficult-to-detect techniques.

Social Media & Competition

  • Data collection core to business models.
  • Mergers/acquisitions risk consumer privacy.
  • Example: Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp.
    • Promised privacy, later contradicted.
  • 2020 antitrust lawsuits against Facebook and Google.
  • Importance of considering privacy in competition assessments.

Social Media & Data Breaches

  • Data vulnerable to hacking, scraping, breaches.
  • Data includes location, health, religious identity, and more.
  • Consequences: stalking, outing, disclosure of practices.
  • Inadequate privacy policies without comprehensive legislation.

EPIC's Role in Social Media Privacy

  • Advocacy for privacy before Congress, courts, FTC.
  • Example: Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal.
    • EPIC's 2008 warning about third-party access.
    • 2009 FTC complaint about Facebook's privacy changes.
    • 2011 FTC settlement for privacy charges.
    • 2014 complaint about Facebook's psychological testing.
    • Advocacy against Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp.
    • 2018 Cambridge Analytica data breach.
    • 2019 intervention in Facebook settlement.
    • 2020 Oracle-TikTok data privacy concerns.
    • Complaint against TikTok for child privacy law violations.

Conclusion

  • Importance of strict privacy safeguards.
  • Need for federal action to protect user data and promote competition.