Privacy

   

   A large part of new media is social media. When people think of social media, they often come up with cites such as Instagram and Facebook where individuals share posts, videos, and images with any array of people. These sites offer a sense of privacy by offering different settings for who can view one’s posts. It is often then expected that only those who the user chose to share with will be able to see the posts and that its contents would not exceed that group.

       This is where it is important to know the difference between privacy and confidentiality. According to the Institutional Review Board at the University of Pittsburgh, privacy is “an individual’s right to control access to their personal information” and confidentiality is “how private information provided by individuals will be protected by [another] from release”(University of Pittsburgh, 2014).

       The settings on some apps offer some sort of privacy by allowing the user to initially choose who may view the posts. However, many people do not investigate privacy settings and do not realize that their privacy settings may extend further than expected. Mark Zuckerberg’s sister experienced this when one of her photos was publicly shared after she set a photo to be viewed by ‘friends.’ She failed to realize that if she tagged people in the photo then the friends of those friends could also view the photo.

       In an example like this, where privacy settings were not clear to the user the user’s idea of confidentiality could be compromised as well. The extended amount of people who can view the posts may not realize the level of confidentiality expected from the original poster. The post, which was expected to be private, can now be shared publicly without the initial user realizing and without the sharer realizing that any expectations were violated.

       As new media is used by more people and on a more daily basis, aspects of people’s lives that they never wanted to share with the public are now being unintentionally shared. Posts can seem to never really be private. The bounded lifetime is limitless, and the transitivity of access may not be easy to understand. Something meant to be shared with friends only can be seen by someone’s boss and depending on the content, the “private” post may cause backlash in the workplace.

References:
Greenfield, R. (2013, October 30). Facebook Privacy Is So Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private. Retrieved April 22, 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/12/facebook-privacy-so-confusing-even-zuckerberg-family-photo-isnt-private/320164/

University of Pittsburgh. (2014). Privacy versus Confidentiality. Privacy versus Confidentiality. Pittsburgh, PA.

Reed, D. (2011, May 11). Information Privacy: Changing Norms and Expectations. Retrieved April 22, 2020, from https://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/108232-information-privacy-changing-norms-and-expectations/fulltext