Consider Michelle, an 18-year-old biracial lesbian. Before coming out to her family, she employed different privacy strategies on Facebook that would allow her to connect with and communicate with her friends, while also ensuring that particular family members did not find out that she identified as a lesbian. She did this by creating lists that restricted the kinds of information family members could see, such as photos that she posted to Facebook. However, because Facebook renders interactions visible, and because others in her network had different privacy settings than she did, Michelle’s seemingly private conversations and Likes can inadvertently reveal information about her sexuality. For example, she might Like another friend’s post or leave a comment on a news story that could unintentionally reveal something about her sexuality that she intended to keep private. Because these interactions feel private, she understandably believed these interactions were contained to that specific friend or that isolated news story, however because of “Like recycling” her actions were re-appropriated in a different context and had the potential to reveal information about her identity she did not expect to share with her entire Facebook network. Individuals can only exert limited control and agency over what is revealed about them via Facebook. Regardless of what they deliberately choose to share on Facebook, the public nature of their interactions, combined with “Like recycling” makes it increasingly easy for someone to infer users’ ideologies, sexuality, religious affiliations, politics, and so forth, even if they do not deliberately reveal this information on their own posts and profiles. Michelle and other teens are increasingly aware of the fact that they have limited control over what their networks reveal about them; they are increasingly frustrated by changes in Facebook’s interface, and as a result are limiting their use of Facebook in favor of other social media platforms.
Further complications are added by the fact that Facebook does not make it easy to see your own Likes, nor is it easy to un-Like something once you have Liked it. Unlike your list of friends, which you can fairly easily access and manage (e.g., unfriend someone to whom you no longer wish to be connected), it is much more difficult to see every page and organization and story and post and photo you have Liked. Your name and image will show up in your friend’s news feeds (“Sarah Likes Fox News”) without your explicit knowledge, and those same ads are not showing up in your ownnews feed or on your own profile. In fact, Facebook makes it exceptionally difficult to see and manage how your name and account are used across the platform and the opt-out options are not easily accessed either. Participants were mostly unaware that when they see ads with friends’ endorsements, these “endorsements’ may not have been explicit or intentional. Further, when they Like a funny joke or meme, they typically do not pay much attention to the organization or page that initially shared the joke. For example, as one organization documented, people who Liked the conservative group For America later had their name associated with a post arguing that “Obamacare must go!” Those users were upset that Liking one story was a license to endorse something completely unrelated later (DesMarais 2012).
From an everyday social norm understanding of Facebook, Liking one post by an organization is not typically understood as consent to support and promote every future post from that organization. In other words, there is a disparity between how teens (and adults) conceptualize their interactions on Facebook and how Facebook understands privacy and social norms. What I am advocating for is a better and more accessible way for users to manage their Likes. Facebook could be more transparent about how Likes are publicized across the site and offer easier and more accessible options for un-Liking something. The platform could provide users with a greater knowledge of and control over how their names are used in other people’s news feeds. Just because someone Liked a news story from five years ago, it should not mean that that users’ identity should be forever linked to the organization or brand.
Resistance Strategies
Some participants embraced the changes to Facebook’s interface, policies, and algorithms and others were unaware or more apathetic about them. However, many young people in this study were bothered by these changes and resisted the move toward a public, consistent, and converged identity. Undoubtedly there are a lot of reasons why teens may be using Facebook less frequently, but I believe one reason has to do with their expectations to perform more fluid, ephemeral, and disconnected online identities. Facebook connects disparate social networks—from childhood, high school, work, family, church, etc.—into one space and collapses those contexts. The platform does not consider the different ways people interact with different groups, the fluid nature of identity, or the variation in social norms that fluctuate across different contexts. In other words, the interface ignores the “contextual integrity” of how young people intend to interact and share information. Rather than attempting to manage one cohesive and acceptable identity, some young people are choosing to use different social networks to articulate different aspects of their identities and connect with different communities.
I consistently hear young people explain that they are reluctant to express opinions on Facebook. A young black female explained to me: “If I post something that I don’t think is a big deal, someone is going to make it political. Or, like, read into it or something. Then, like, there’s people on my Facebook fighting with each other and they don’t even know each other. I see this all the time. No, I just don’t even post stuff anymore, it’s not worth it.” Time and time again, young people explained that they preferred not to post personal information or opinions on Facebook because they could be misinterpreted or used to start fights between the different networks on their Facebook. How then do young people manage their interests, passions, identities, and networks online? If you were to look at Facebook, one might mistakenly jump to the conclusion that young people don’t use social networks to express opinions or beliefs. Much of what you may see are inside jokes, silly videos, and humorous memes being passed around and shared. You will see a lot of people making plans, posting photos of their friends, or discussing quotidian social interactions. However, while teens (like adults) do these things, there is a lot more going on via social media than there may seem to be at first glance.
When I first met Gabriela, she used Facebook daily but expressed ambiguity about the site. She had deleted it from the home screen of her phone and removed the bookmark from the browser on her laptop. She explained that she checked Facebook a lot out of habit, but then found that she was often “frustrated, annoyed, and bored” with what she saw. “I think Facebook is kind of dying but slowly.” Instead, she preferred to use Twitter and Tumblr for different purposes. This allowed Gabriela to tap into different online communities, use different accounts for different purposes, and maintain relationships in a more private way. For example, Gabriela and her boyfriend shared a Tumblr account that was just for the two of them—no one else had the link. While she and her boyfriend also sent text messages throughout the day, she said she liked Tumblr because they could share images and song lyrics and quotes with each other: “Like, if I saw a picture that reminded me of him, I’d re-blog it and he could see it later.” Tumblr was a way for Gabriela and her boyfriend to foster intimacy and communicate, but in a more private way than Facebook typically afforded.
Additionally, Gabriela used two Twitter accounts—one for friends and one for following musicians. When asked what she liked about Twitter, she explained: “It’s kind of becoming the new Facebook a little bit. But not that many people really like it. And so, I just like what I do. I basically just post whatever’s on my mind just rapidly. It goes faster. And so, people don’t have to follow you. If they want to follow you then they know that they’re just going to see it. And on Facebook it’s not like that.” Twitter does not require a reciprocal relationship. Gabriela liked that people could choose to follow her if they wanted, but she did not have to also see their posts. Other students expressed similar attitudes. Antonio (17 years old, Mexican-America
n) explained: “If people don’t want to see what I post, then just don’t follow me.” This is quite different form the norms of Facebook. Breaking off a connection—unfriending someone—has a lot of social implications that speak to the nature of the friendship. It can cause a lot of problems within groups of friends and is imbued with different meanings and interpretations that are not conveyed on Twitter. Additionally, Facebook’s Terms of Service explicitly prohibit users from creating multiple accounts. Rather than creating different accounts for different purposes, Facebook users are expected to negotiate complicated and ever-changing privacy settings.
Tumblr and Twitter streamline privacy management by allowing users, and even encouraging them, to create different profiles and different accounts. This allows young people to not only keep their networks separate (the equivalent of performing different identities in different public spaces and contexts in the physical world), but also invites experimentation. Young people can explore different interests and articulate different identities within the same platform, but via different accounts. Tumblr in particular affords anonymity and exploration. “By providing an outlet where people can be anonymous and detached from their actions,” Montiel argues (2012, p. 24), “users are able to make mistakes and experiment.” Particularly for young people, who are caught between and betwixt different subject positions, identities, roles, and imagined selves, the ability to experiment is significant and valuable. Tumblr provides a space for young people to express themselves without the same risks that have become common on Facebook. To reiterate Gabriela’s quote from the beginning of the chapter: “Everyone keeps their Tumblr private usually because they post, like, actually what they’re going through or what they feel.” The community-driven and personal aspects of Tumblr facilitated anonymity and experimentation that was not feasible on a site such as Facebook.
Additionally, the private nature of Tumblr afforded Gabriela and other young people the freedom to express themselves, but without a concern for their reputation. Gabriela continued: “I tend to stop caring about what people think and so I post what I feel. If I get sad then I post what I’m sad about. I have trouble saying things out loud. I have an idea how to say it in my head, so I write it on Tumblr. It helps me process my thoughts.” In terms of identity and privacy, Gabriela’s comment that she “stops caring what people think” speaks to some teens’ preference for platforms that invite personal expression in spaces that are more or less invisible to their peers, but afford visibility within a different context. Gabriela chose to express herself on Tumblr because she valued the feedback she received from the community. She enjoyed processing her emotions via writing and on a blog. However, unlike on Facebook, the expressions did not become part of her online identity repertoire. The public and publicized nature of Facebook encourages young people to consciously construct identities for the approval of one’s network. Whereas Tumblr, as a more private blog, encourages individuals to express themselves for the sake of expression and connection, rather than as part of reputation management.
Conclusion
Returning to a framework of visibility, discussions of privacy are often couched in harm-driven expectations about the risks of making personal information overly accessible. Understandably adults worry that young people might intentionally or inadvertently reveal too much information about themselves. Personal information opens up opportunities for misinterpretation and has the potential to harm future opportunities. Certainly we are justified as a society to be concerned about what kinds of information young people are sharing, with whom, in what spaces, and for what purposes. However, we need to also call into question who is deliberately and intentionally accessing information about young people, in what spaces, and for what purposes. The burden of responsibility should not lie solely on the shoulders of young people. That is, while they have a responsibility to be smart about what they share online, and while educators and parents ought to help young people make smart decisions about what they share online, we need to also question how those with power are using digital media to surveil and exploit young people’s online practices.
In a lot of ways, media panics about predators and privacy have been effective in educating young people about the risks of oversharing. In 2013, research reveals, 60 percent of teen Facebook users kept their profiles private (Madden et al. 2013). Likewise, qualitative research continually indicates that young people employ various strategies for managing and maintaining their privacy (boyd 2014; Marwick and boyd 2010; Vickery 2014). My conversations with and observations of teens suggest that the overwhelming majority took some measure to protect their privacy and were aware of the risks involved in oversharing online. And, as has already been noted in this chapter, young people employ different and deliberate strategies to maintain privacy within certain spaces and keep information from certain audiences.
However, if we frame sharing and visibility only as a risk—and an individual responsibility—we miss valuable opportunities to help young people construct positive online identities. More and more often, young people explain to me that they are no longer using Facebook, have little to no interest in LinkedIn, use Twitter for entertainment but not for networking, and keep their Instagram and Tumblr accounts completely private. College seniors who are about to enter the workforce tell me they are reluctant to create digital portfolios and construct a positive online identity. They consider these deliberate disassociation practices to be smart strategies for protecting their privacy, and they are correct. However, I am concerned that the privacy pendulum has swung too far in the direction of protection. I see evidence that young people are so concerned with minimizing risks that they are likely to miss out on the opportunities that can also accompany visibility (see chapter 5). Such practices of hiding, self-censorship, and opting out risk further marginalizing the voices and experiences of non-dominant youth.
Reflecting on her own online privacy strategies, Inara (17 years old, Mexican-American) explained: “Sometimes I really don’t care. I’m a grownup. I think I should be allowed to say what I want to say, and not have people judge me.” Inara voiced frustration that she could not use online spaces to express herself in the ways she preferred; instead she had to constantly negotiate her intended audience with potential imagined audiences. While this was not a bad strategy in and of itself, for Inara and others like her this often meant just not posting or sharing anything in a public space in the first place. In other words, it was easier to remain hidden than to negotiate visibility. In an age of increasing surveillance, it is no wonder young people (and adults) are cautious about creating public online identities. In 2015, an Illinois law made it legal for school administrators to access students’ social media sites; since then, administrators have gone so far as to require students to share passwords with administrators (Schwarz 2015). Schools in north Texas (and probably elsewhere) employ police officers to actively monitor all forms of communication that are transmitted over the school’s Wi-Fi (source: author’s personal communication with school district). This is, of course, in addition to other modes of surveillance in which schools block students’ and faculty’s access to websites, apps, and services (as discussed in chapter 3). This blatant surveillance further reinforces differences in power, access, and transparency. Those with the least amount of social capital and power are often subjected to greater modes of surveillance. For example, minimum wage workers are more likely to be subjected to drug testing before employment than are educated white-collar workers (Gilliom 2001). In response to the Illinois bill, Kade Crockford, director for the Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union, said: “You have to think about the school-to-prison pipeline—who will be affected by this legislation, who will be arrested in school as a result of information discovered by administrators on their phones? It’s kids of color, poor kids, kids with intellectual and learning disabilities. That’s what we see across the country” (Koebler 2015). Crockford is absolutely correct: the Internet opens up new modes for in
creased surveillance, particularly of those without power. That is why marginalized young people are seeking out spaces that afford more privacy, more ephemeral forms of communication, anonymity, and disconnectedness, which are powerful and effective tools for evading surveillance. Snapchat and private Instagram accounts provide safer opportunities for exploration, experimentation, and peer interactions without the prying eyes of administrators, employers, and law enforcement. At the same time, the invisibility of their interactions and practices also serves to reify their already marginalized and often silenced subject positions, experiences, and concerns. The Internet and social media afford young people opportunities to participate in networked publics. It affords opportunities for teens to network with those with power, to organize for social change, to share their unique experiences. However, these opportunities can be severely limited by harm-driven expectations that perpetuate fears and heightened risks associated with sharing. As the law professor Samuel Bagenstos cautions (2013, p.14), we need to be “especially concerned that social equality is threatened when one class of people—defined by wealth or income—systematically gives up the choice to engage in those activities that are especially important to defining and understanding the self.” Digital media are important for “defining and understanding the self,” yet self-censorship and practices of disconnectedness can paradoxically protect privacy and evade surveillance while disproportionately further marginalizing nondominant populations.
Worried About the Wrong Things Page 31