Social media platforms like Facebook were designed to encourage sharing and connecting people, but this has led to erosion of privacy norms. On social media, conversations are public by default and users must take active steps to make posts private. Further, once information is posted online it can be difficult to remove permanently and is at risk of being indexed and identified by data brokers. To help protect privacy, users should be aware that whatever they post could be publicly visible indefinitely, refrain from auto-posting or geo-tagging, and carefully review privacy settings on social media accounts.

1. Social Media
and Privacy
Sarah Mitchell

2. Big Brother meet Mark Zuckerberg
Written in 1949 Launched in 2004
Pervasive government Facebook's mission is to give people
the power to share
surveillance and make the world more
open and connected.

3. http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-statistics-australia-january-2012/

4. Paradigm Shift in
Social Norms
We
Assume: But Online:
Conversations are Conversations are
private and only public by default and
made public when you have to work to
we take action make them private

5. What is Privacy?
“Privacy
isn’t about controlling
functional access to content as
much as knowing what to share
when and how it will flow.”
Danah Boyd
32nd International Conference
of Data Protection and
Privacy Commissioners

6. The Pull
of the Social Network

7. The comfort
of strangers
1. Most social networks have no way to
qualify friendships. If they do, they’re
ineffective or rarely used.
2. We’re much more relaxed about strangers
in an online environment than we are
in person.
3. Social networks provide a game-like
atmosphere where collecting friends
and building big followings is desirable.
Alexander Korth, http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/on_privacy_in_social_networks_what_drives_users.php

8. Be aware
 Social Media is
designed to encourage
people to abandon
privacy. We’re MORE
reserved in person.
 We connect with
people we don’t know
and we do it often
 It’s immediate;
everyone has devices
and networks
Image courtesy of Miss Karen at Flickr.com

9. Your Information
is Networked
 Social Media is considered
part of the public domain
 Over 90% of recruiters
used social media tools to
screen candidates
 Journalists scour
Facebook whenever
they need a photo
Image courtesy of fredcavazza at Flickr.com

10. It’s not
Big Brother
you should be
worrying about -
It’s your
family, friends
and colleagues

11. There is
no privacy!
“It’s highly likely that if you have
had a public profile or website that
has publicly accessible data, it’s
been indexed and identified by
someone.” tribalytic.com

12. What on earth is
WOEID?

13. How is WOEID
determined?
 GPS coordinates
 Geo tags derived from
user profiles
 Your time zone
 Text mining
 Language identifier
 Network theory
 Autoposting features

14. How is WOEID used?

15. Social Media is here to stay BUT:
 Your data lives into
perpetuity
 You don’t own the
data once it’s
posted onto the
web
 Privacy policies
change all the time

16. How to Stem
Privacy Erosion
 Behave as if the world is paying attention – it is
 Turn off GEO tracking on your electronic devices
(don’t forget your car)
 Remove or deactivate social networking accounts
you no longer use
 Refrain from using auto posting features
 Refrain from using cross channel integration
 Become familiar with privacy settings
 Don’t reveal your birthdate

17. Social Media is
NOT private
Understanding the flow of data
and the integration between
social networking channels is key
to protecting your privacy.

18. Questions?