Today’s Plan

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

How often do you click …

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

• “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)

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

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

“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”

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

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?

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]

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

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

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

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

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)

Socialist Privacy

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

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