Social Media and Facebook in particular are one of the biggest catalysts in why culture has changed. One of the biggest ways our culture has changed is that Facebook has taken away our privacy in a variety of ways. Facebook has taken away privacy in both controversial and non controversial ways. Some non controversial ways that Facebook has taken away privacy are through users sharing information. Facebook has different ways of social interaction, users can post statuses, photos, videos, and event their own location. While all of these have positive qualities that allow people to be more connected, all of these have the potential to infringe on a persons privacy and because of this can be very risky. For example if a Facebook user posts a photo of themselves and a friend out at a bar with out the friends consent, the Facebook user is infringing on the friends privacy as he is releasing information that would not have been known without the photo. Also Privacy is also taken away by Facebook users in a willing way by oversharing. Oversharing is this concept in which users share all facets of their lives. While this does infringe on the users privacy, users that participate in this process are more than willing to give up their privacy. This can be seen in a Pew research statistic in which “91% of Facebook users post pictures of themselves and 71% post what city or town they live” (pewinternet.org) There are also controversial ways in which Facebook has taken users right to privacy. One of the biggest examples of this is with Cambridge Analytica in which Cambridge Analytica “gained access to private information on more than 50 million Facebook users. The firm offered tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior.” (NY Times). What this shows is that Facebook is susceptible to hacking and users having their information used by companies that they did not want having their information.
Trends: The trend of Facebook and privacy is that users of Facebook are always going to give up some sort of privacy as users. The features that Facebook has make it hard for its users to have 100% privacy as they post updates and photos that shows different parts of their lives. But at the same time the more controversial ways the Facebook infringes on privacy may be gone soon as Facebook has been making efforts to reduce hacking and Facebook itself tracking its users data.
Impact: The impact of users of Facebook losing privacy is huge. One of the rights of an American citizen is the Right to Privacy, and the fact that users of Facebook willingly use this right to be a part of Facebook. Also Facebook has created this who entire culture in which users willingly share information about themselves, every application asks for basic information about its user such as being able to access photos and email, and one of the biggest reasons people willingly give up information like this is due to Facebook.
Predictions: While privacy is becoming more of an emphasis for users and Facebook is trying to have stronger privacy settings, it is tough to have privacy on Facebook as there is so much sharing of information that goes on. Also many applications use Facebook as a way to create an ID so more information is being shared within Facebook. So in conclusion it is very hard for users of Facebook to keep their privacy the same way it would be if they were not on Facebook.
Deepan's Tech & Disruption Journal 