State of Social Media Security
Social Media usage continues to increase despite privacy threats and fears. The latest Hootsuite data showed the number of social media users grew by more than 100 million in the first 3 months of 2018. Despite the Cambridge Analytica issue, Facebook posted a growth of 3.2% at the start of 2018. By Oct 2018, Facebook has 2.27B active users, with 1.15B daily active users using mobile. This increased use of mobile is an opportunity taken advantage of by advertisers, resulting to 91% of Facebook’s total ad revenue for Q2 2018.
Staggering amounts of information get shared on social media. Unimaginable numbers of comments, status updates and photo uploads happen every 60 seconds on Facebook: 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded. This is an indication of engagement, of users’ willingness to use the platform, and consent for self-disclosure of personal information to whoever wants to consume it, depending on how wide their circle of friends are, or what their restrictions are on their privacy settings.
The MORE information WE share, the greater the risk we put on our personal privacy. The SNSs provide the medium for social connectedness, but we are the ones who have the information to share and consume. Despite the threats to privacy, why do we choose and continue to participate on social media?
Perception of threat to Privacy < Value of Social Connectedness
“Revelation of personal data is not only perceived as exceedingly habitual, but also expected.” (Vogel et al., 2016). It is human nature to want to connect with people we know such as family, friends, even acquaintances with whom we share similar interests. SNSs make this seamlessly possible. The value to us of social connectedness influences how we perceive the threat to privacy, or if we even think about our privacy at all.
The Vogel study covered years (2010-2015) before the increased adoption rate of mobile access. Mobile accessibility changed the whole online playing field. Mobile usage changed the way we use social media. Now users have easier access to not only consume and distribute content, but to create unlimited amounts of it as well. The mobile apps keep us more engaged and give us more reasons to return and use the app many times during the day. According to the Pew Report, 74% of the active users in the US visit Facebook daily, while 51% visit the app many times during the day.
How valuable is Privacy to us? Users’ behavior in content consumption and creation changed dramatically. Regardless of age category, we have become the “selfie generation”. We take photos of ourselves everywhere we go, whatever it is we do. We take photos of regular daily moments – from the #OOTD (outfit of the day) to the food we eat and who we eat it with. We connect to every public wifi available. We “check-in” at every restaurant, moviehouse, airports, etc. We post info/photos about our homes, our kids’ schools or our travel plans. These are just few examples of the how we nurture that social connectedness at the expense of increasing the threat to our privacy. We ‘feel safe’ , maybe even compelled to share that information because we see our social circle posting the same things.
Who has ownership of that information? Whose Responsibility is it to Protect our Privacy?
Organizations may not be fully responsible for the kind of data that gets posted and consumed in their networks/platform, but they should be concerned about the implications to their company should any data breach happens. Unauthorized access to that data will be seen as a breach of privacy, no matter how that happens – whether on purpose, with malicious intent, or as a consequence of ever-evolving technological advances to find and get hold of valuable consumer’s data.
Based on the privacy policies of Google, Facebook and Twitter, I could say that the abovementioned companies have done whatever they could (with the resources available to them) at this point to be transparent on what data they collect, how they collect them, and what (good) purpose they collect that information for. But the question is: do we even read those privacy policies when we get notifications of updates? Are we even aware of the improved privacy settings which we now have control of?
These companies do their best to provide us the information about how much data we are provide them when we agree to use their platforms. But knowing how much of our ‘privacy’ we are giving away does not necessarily stop us from using the platforms. Will we deactivate our Twitter accounts? Will we delete our Facebook accounts? Or stop using all Google services such as Youtube, Gmail, Chrome, etc? When we think about it, we don’t really have a choice. This is the world we live in now – always connected, online, and accessible. And whether we admit it or not, we want to be part of it.
Whose responsibility is it to protect our privacy? It should be the SNS’s commitment to not abuse that privacy with the amount of information we entrust them. But the bigger responsibility of protecting that privacy is ours. SNSs find ways to safeguard our information, provide options for privacy settings, educate users about privacy policies, etc. It is our responsibility to be aware of our risks and use privacy options that are important to us.
This is the price of the social connectedness we want to be a part of.
Sources:
http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/
Djill Consulting 