The review thus far has identified a number of uses and advantages of using Social Media such as Twitter and Facebook. This section identifies a number of problems that arise from the usage by individuals.
Cain (2008) stated that the four unique properties of a mediated public site are persistence, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences. The issue is that discussions and media are stored indefinitely and can be altered and retrieved by third parties without the knowledge of the author. Due to the searchability and persistence of the personal information shared online the audience for the information is not restricted by time. Tufekci (2008a) stated that the audience could exist in the future. In the time it takes an individual to upload a photo, have second thoughts and delete it, it could be saved and distributed by anyone (Porter 2008). People use tools like PeekYou and Rapleaf to automatically create composite profiles of users based on the information taken from Social Network Sites (Madden et al. 2007).
Individuals, friends, uninvited visitors and hackers are using the full range of Social Media (Korica et al. 2006). Individuals can authorize friends to participate in Facebook, however the
‘open’ nature of applications leaves room for others to view the information (Schwall 2003).
People outside the user’s friends can access their information such as lawyers (Ward 2007), the media (Petrie et al. 2007) and potential romantic engagements (Thompson 2008). Treese (2009, p.
14) reiterated that individuals should be mindful that the potential audience includes ‘bosses, future bosses, spouses, future spouses, ex-spouses, our children, and potentially everyone else’.
Research from Madden & Smith (2010) showed that online adults search online for information about potential or current relationships. Even if the individual chose a high level of privacy settings, according to Tufekci (2008b), many individuals ‘friend’ people that they do not know and therefore their page is read by strangers regardless of the privacy settings. Stutzman, Capra and Thompson (2010, p. 2) noted that the relationship between ‘privacy attitudes and privacy behaviors is a complicated one’ where the attitude and the behavior do not match.
Madden et al. (2007) highlighted that the audience could include creditors, law enforcement, and other professional investigators. The information appearing on Facebook and Twitter is considered public record and therefore can be used, for example, by criminal defense lawyers to research witnesses (Ward 2007). A UK law firm, specializing in divorce cases, reported that
nearly one in five divorce petitions cite Facebook as a contributing factor (Moscaritolo 2012) and a similar survey in the USA by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers cited Facebook as the main reason behind one out of five divorces in the US (Das & Jyoti 2011, p. 226). Research by Tahir and Jones (2009) showed that insurance companies were using Social Media to investigate individuals who claim their everyday social activities have been compromised. Das and Jyoti (2011) also claim that 80 percent of divorce lawyers use Social Network Sites to gather evidence such as flirty messages and photographs.
Palfrey and Gasser (2008) asserted that individuals are losing control over their digital information. The President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, said ‘I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook because, in the YouTube age whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life’ (Stewart, ed. 2009).
Given the rich nature of the content available about individuals online and the ease of finding this information, Madden et al. (2007, p. 2) observe that ‘people are not just findable, they are knowable’. The permanency of youthful transgressive conduct was identified as an issue for individuals by boyd and Jenkins (2006); that there is no longer any statute of limitation on their youthful indiscretions.
Schwall (2003) suggested that the incidence of hacking on Social Media was not high as there was little perceived ‘challenge’ in hacking something that was available to all. But there is scope for people to be indiscreet, gossip and share another’s ‘private’ information. While individuals may be conscious of their own reputation based on what they share online, Chen et al. (2009) considered one of the greatest threats to an individual’s privacy was the unauthorized information disclosure by peers. There was also the threat of vandalism to information shared on Facebook (Myhill, Shoebridge & Snook 2009). Das and Jyoti (2011) drew attention to Facebook profiles that have been hacked. In 2010 an online security consultant posted online the personal details of 100 million Facebook users. This illustrated the vulnerability of profile information. From this information we could see that personal information shared online has multiple and unexpected audiences.
The development and maintenance of reputation is context based (Bagheri & Ghorbani 2006) and online information can be easily taken out of context. There are genuine issues and consequences to consider around sharing information. Madden and Smith (2010) claim that 44%
of online adults have searched for information about someone whose services or advice they seek in a professional capacity and consequently illustrates the importance of an individual’s reputation.
According to Solove (2007) shaming is a growing trend on Facebook and Twitter. Azman (2010) investigated the use of Social Media to shame people who have not paid their taxes. Solove (2007) used the examples of people posting videos of anti-social behavior. His example is a woman known to the world now as ‘dog poo lady’ after someone uploaded a video of her ignoring her dog while it went to the toilet on the train.
Popular media reports that business is using Facebook and Twitter in hiring and decision making and even expecting applicants to share passwords (Garber 2012). Brown and Vaughn (2011) stated that this practice seems to be indicative of what peer-reviewed literature is reporting, thus highlighting the importance that an individual maintains their reputation online.
Westin (1967, p. 7) defines privacy as ‘the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how and to what extent information about them is communicated to others’. The privacy rights of the individual are the rights that an individual has to a private sphere, and that the individual has the right to control the flow of information about their own life (Van Hove 1995). Privacy in this context is about the control an individual has over their own information (Solove 2007).
According to Cain (2008) and Braun and Pöhls (2008) online discussions and media are stored indefinitely and can be altered and, as discussed above, can be retrieved by third parties without the author knowing. In 2007, when a violent assault and fatal shootings occurred in the CBD of Melbourne, Australia, two victims found that their MySpace photos were used by mainstream media without their permission. The provocative images on their sites were used by the media to portray them in a negative light (Petrie et al. 2007). This example highlights that images on a public website are considered ‘public domain’ (Joyner 2008).
Facebook and Twitter can be used to establish identity (Tufekci 2008a), but it also highlights the issue of identity verification which is a privacy and security concern (Acquisti & Gross 2006;
boyd 2007). Madden and Smith (2010) show that 49% of Social Network Site users post
information using their real name, 43% do so with a username with only 5% posting anonymously.
Another issue, according to Cain (2008), is that there is a concern that younger people may open themselves up to inappropriate and dangerous behavior as a result of giving personal information in a public forum; although studies by Cassell and Cramer (2007) show that the instances of children being solicited online have decreased over recent years. Facebook and Twitter have built-in privacy features that allow the creator to choose whether their selections are for public viewing or only for access by ‘friends’ (Facebook 2012a).
Solove (2007) identified the taxonomy of privacy and in doing so we are able to identify a number of factors that influence personal information sharing online. He identified the following issues:
• Breach of confidentiality – breaking a promise to keep a persons information private;
• Disclosure – revelation of truthful information about an individual that may affect their reputation;
• Exposure – revealing other’s ‘nudity, grief, or bodily functions’ (p105);
• Increased accessibility- make information more accessible;
• Blackmail – threat to disclose personal information;
• Appropriation – use of another’s identity to serve another’s aims or interests ;
• Distortion – circulating false or misleading information about an individual.
Individuals aged 18-29 are more likely to limit the amount of personal information available about themselves online (Madden & Smith 2010). Of those individuals 71% of them change the privacy settings on Social Network Sites, 47% delete unwanted comments about themselves and 41% remove their name from tagged photographs (Madden & Smith 2010).
There is some discussion (boyd 2012) around the changing dimensions of privacy and whether our concepts of what is private are shifting. If everyone is sharing a high level of information then do we blur the area between private and open? Brenton stated in 1964 (p. 25) that ‘A couple of generations hence, will some automated society look upon privacy with the same air of amused nostalgia we now reserve for, say, elaborate eighteenth-century drawing room manners’. Society may be heading this way when we consider the levels of sharing occurring.
As early as 2000 the CEO of Sun Mircosystems Scott McNealy stated ’privacy is dead – get over it’. In a 2009 article written for CNN, under the heading ‘Privacy is dead, and social media hold the smoking gun’, Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore reiterated McNealy’s view. While extreme views they highlight the on-going conversations about privacy.
One of the concerns of public forums is the tendency for contributors to be unrestrained in their ideas and language. As with any combination of information, the end result is only as good as the raw data, so the intellectual integrity of the information provided on Social Media is questionable; and evidence of bias must be taken into consideration (Marks 2006). Long (2006) and Solove (2007) contend that the effects of unregulated bias and little control of information are affecting personal reputation as there is no filter for gossip or incorrect information.
Misinformation and inappropriate postings cannot be corrected by the affected individual, nor can the party responsible for that posting be required to remove it.
Individuals are paid to tweet and update their Facebook profiles. Recommendations from people have a sense of trust built into them but many are paid to give these recommendations.
According to CBS news (2011) and the Wall Street Journal (2012) celebrities can get paid $10,000 or more per post to spruik about goods on Twitter. They gave examples of Snoop Dogg and Toyota, Tori Spelling and rental cars, and Khloe Kardashian Odom with Old Navy.
Franek (2006, p. 36) defined a cyberbully as ‘anyone who repeatedly misuses technology to harass, intimidate, bully, or terrorize another person’. Cyberbullying has been identified as an important area of research (Klomek et al. 2010), but there are few studies into the area. Klomek et al. (2010) identify that cyberbullying can cause suicide in later life; creating challenges for parents, schools, and policymakers to provide adequate protections for children, while balancing an individual’s rights to freedoms of speech, expression, and thought (King 2010).
Bullying and hate crimes are not only the domain of young users as there have been instances of people being murdered because of their use of Facebook. Such as cases where a changed Facebook status (from married to single) (Cheston 2008), photographs posted of new boyfriends online (Quigley 2012) or through the fear they may find someone else online (White 2010) have resulted in the deaths of individuals.
With 76% of Americans connected to the Internet, 61% in Australia (inc. Oceania) and 52% in Europe (World Internet statistics 2012), and coupled with Facebook and Twitter usage increasing at expediential rates there is a feeling that ‘everyone’ is using these technologies.
When you hear that if Facebook were a country it would be the world’s third largest then one tends to think about it being global. But in reality a Digital Divide occurs worldwide in that 75%
of the world’s population do not have Internet access (World Internet statistics 2012). Only 20%
have access in Asia, 29% in the Middle East and only 9% in Africa.
While this research discusses the ubiquitous nature of Facebook and Twitter it must be acknowledged that there are levels of involvement depending on Internet access. Ronchi (2009, p.5) states that ‘there are large areas of the globe that are almost inaccessible for technological, political, social, economic and/or religious reasons’.
Keniston in 2003 contended that there were four types of Digital Divide. Within a country there was the financial divide between those that could afford the technology and those who could not. Another divide occurred between the English speaking ‘elite’ with those who spoke only speak local languages or dialects; which Keniston considered a linguistic and cultural divide.
The third divide as evidenced above was between developed nations and developing nations.
And finally the divide between Technology professionals and the more traditional professional sector. Technology professionals (including biotechnology and pharmacology) had high purchasing power and a better understanding of the ICT paradigm.
A recent study from PEW Internet and the American Life Project (Zickuhr & Smith 2012) stated that the ‘rise of mobile is changing the story’ for groups that have traditionally been on the other side of the Digital Divide because they are using wireless connections to go online.
The Digital Divide was discussed above but there were also individuals who were reluctant to adopt the technologies. College students and High school students are well represented in the literature as early and sustained adopters of Social Media (boyd 2007; Lenhart and Madden 2007; Hinduja and Patchin 2008; Selwyn 2009). This supports statistics for the American usage of Social Media demographics where 73% of online teens and 72% of young adults use Social Network Sites. The theory of technology acceptance states that there are always individuals who are reluctant to adopt new technologies (Davis 1989), and Park et al. (2009) claims that
individuals who are concerned about their privacy may be reluctant to adopt. In 2012 boyd observed that there is a segment of America that do not adopt Facebook or Twitter for religious reasons; that the conservative nature of their beliefs stops them from being involved.
There are consequences to the information that individuals share online. One such case was when Google dismissed an employee for reporting about the personal goings-on inside the Google compound (Davis 2005). A Delta Airlines flight attendant lost her position because she posted photographs of herself in her uniform (Lee et al. 2006). In the United States at the present time there is virtually no protection against losing your job based on information you have shared online (McCullagh 2008). Students have been expelled from University for writing racially insensitive and threatening behavior on Facebook (Cain 2008), while other students have been suspended because of alcohol and drug references on their social pages. Also, students who were prospective teachers have been refused graduation for inappropriate posting on a Social Network Site (Carter et al. 2008). Peluchette and Karl (2010, p. 30) investigated why individuals shared inappropriate material on their Facebook site when they knew their employers could see it. They found that people wanted to portray a particular image and this influenced what they shared. Some participants wanted to portray ‘sexually appealing, wild, or offensive’ images.
Tonks (2009) investigated the unprofessional content posted by medical students on a Social Network Site. The findings showed innumerable incidents, such as profanities about the course and its staff, breaches of patient confidentiality, sexually suggestive material, photographs of students drunk or using illegal substances, and requests for inappropriate friendships with patients. Chretien et al. (2009) conducted a similar study and found that 60% (47/78) reported incidents of students posting unprofessional online content. Rainie, Lenhart and Smith (2012) state that a third of Social Network Site users have experienced negative outcomes, 49% say that have seen mean or cruel behavior online with 13% saying it had happened to them. The survey found that adults are generally more positive than teens about the behavior of others on Social Network Sites.