Social Networking

Privacy and Social Network

Introduction

Brief summary of the problem

The whole situation around social networking and privacy becomes an issue that will meet here two forces reinforce each other and the third force that would promote less risky behavior on the Internet, can do against the first two forces little (Scoglio, 1998, p. iii). The first two forces are on the one hand that is the desire of (often young) users to present them. Their role is and to find their position and to have many friends (to be popular).

The relief force is the (understandable) commercial interests of the operator to earn money with their complimentary services. The operator can only make money if they find someone who is willing to pay for their services. Users of social networks are limited to only very ready. Where is the expectation that such services should be free?

That is, "sell" the operator of the social networks MUST provide what the users in their profiles. Not necessarily, when he sold the data directly, but by producing the closest possible link between advertising content with the content of users and sold to advertisers (anonymous) access to potential customers - that is, the site sells access to its users.

This is done the better, the more activities as unrestricted as possible for a broad range are visible. Therefore, the whole effort to make regular soaking through the privacy settings and with new tricks like the "LIKE" button, the consumption activities of users as transparent as possible. The declassified consumption and purchasing activities should have set an example for others (Lyon, 2003, p. iii).

A small circle of friends on MySpace or Facebook discussion on philosophical questions about their emotions or brings the social network providers are not much. The users expect free services and they buy these services in that they "lived in public" so that they are estimated as a target group for advertisers to be.

Force against the warnings of misuse of this collective data. This opposing force is helpless against the "Trendy" constantly explaining how "cool" is to give as much of themselves, And - not surprisingly, are the operators of social networks at the forefront with the assertion that "Share" is cool (Smith, 1994, p. iii).

Very concise Zadie Smith has described it in a very readable article in the New York Review of Books (Generation Why? - Here in German: Generation Why? )

To ourselves, we are special people, documented in the lovely photos, and it so happens that we sometimes buy things. This is an incidental matter latter fact, to us. However, the advertising money that wants to rain down on Facebook if and when Zuckerberg succeeds in encouraging 500 million people to take their Facebook identities onto the Internet at large thinks of us, this money the other way around. To the advertisers, we are our capacity to buy, attached to a few personal, irrelevant photos.

Zadie Smith is busy with many other points, this seems very relevant: Facebook (and other social ...