1. Today’s Plan
• privacy – what is it?
• fetishism/victimization discourse – must avoid!
• problems with privacy
• socialist privacy
• business model; targeted ads
• course evaluations

2. How often do you click …

4. What is Privacy?
• restricted access theory of informational
privacy
– ability to limit/restrict others from accessing your
personal information
• control theory of privacy
– control & self-determination over information
about you

5. • “right to privacy is neither a right to secrecy
nor a right to control but a right to
appropriate flow of personal information”
– (Nissenbaum 2010:127; as quoted in Fuchs 2011)

6. Are you willing to sacrifice your
privacy in order to use Facebook?

7. “My mother barely knows how to write on my
wall let along change her privacy.”

8. “In high school I honestly could have cared less
about privacy, however now I definitely care,
and I think that has to do with getting older and
becoming more aware of the stuff I post on
Facebook can impact my offline world”

9. FETISHISM
• phenomena created by humans = natural,
forever & always existing everywhere
• privacy varies over time and place  it is
socially created and constructed
• desire for privacy relates to social inequalities
in society

10. Privacy Fetishism
• young users expose too much info
– targets of surveillance, criminals
• individual  behave correctly, don’t expose
too much [SEXTING]
• ignores poli-eco of Facebook (ads, capital
accumulation, appropriation of user data for
economic ends, user exploitation)
• should we ask people to restrict their use of
social media?

11. Victimization Discourse
• people don’t know have the knowledge, don’t
make use of privacy mechanisms
• irresponsible, ill-informed
• increase privacy levels to solve problems
– but does this equal less fun for users? less
contacts? less satisfaction? deepening of info
inequality [AND FOR WHOM? women?]
• tech deterministic and techno-pessimistic:
inherent risk in tech
• individualistic  ignores how use is
conditioned by societal context of info tech
[want to socialize w friends, etc]

12. Problems with Privacy
• western-centric concept
• typical American liberal belief = strengthening
privacy can cause no harm
• promotes an individual agenda and possessive
individualism that can harm the
public/common good
• can legitimize domestic violence in families
• used for illegal/antisocial activities
• can conceal info to mislead/misrepresent

13. Problems with Privacy
• financial privacy
– private companies do not have to reveal
– publicly traded companies do
– non-profits do
• can support: tax evasion, black money and
money laundering; hides wealth gaps (&
thereby ideologically legitimates them)
• protects rich, companies and wealthy
• ideological mechanism for reproducing &
deepening inequalities

14. Privacy in Capitalism
• universal value  protects private property
• undermined by corporate surveillance for
profit (& political surveillance)
– needed to establish trust
• protects privacy for rich but not for citizens
• ANTAGONISM

15. PRIVACY FOR WHOM?
• privacy rights should equate to one’s position
in the power structure
• modern privacy is related to:
– private property
– capital accumulation
– social inequality

16. Socialist Privacy
• protect consumers & citizens from corporate
surveillance (that aims to gather info in order
to accumulate capital, discipline workers &
consumers, increase productivity of capitalist
production and advertising)

17. Socialist Privacy
• focus: surveillance of capital and the rich to
increase transparency and privacy protection
of consumers and workers

19. Targeted Ads
• business model of most profit-oriented SNS
• need permanent input and activity of users
• increased efficiency of advertising (versus
television model where all audience members
see the same ad)
• more ads in the same time period
• no opt in or out option