Does Facebook Threaten People’s Privacy?

A Synthesis Paper

Presented to

Dennis M. Paigalan

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Liceo de Cagayan University

Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines

In Fulfillment of the Requirements

in Readings in Philippine History (MN-09)

Academic Year 2022-2023

By

Dave E. Daguplo

Bs Biology - 1

December 17, 2022

 Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the primary topics concerning the debates on Facebook
being a Threat to People’s Privacy and to present different sources and perspectives concerning
the issue. After having an in-depth analysis of the topic, the synthesis writer will try to
incorporate ideas from different sources into his own.

Facebook is a website that enables users to connect online with friends, coworkers, and
complete strangers after creating a free profile. It enables users to share their views and opinions
with any people they choose, along with images, music, videos, and articles. As of the third
quarter of 2022, Facebook had over 2.96 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular
online social network globally. It took the site just over 13 years to achieve two billion active
users, which was reached in the second quarter of 2017. As of January 2022, Facebook’s leading
audience base was in India, with almost 330 million users whilst the United States ranked second
with an approximate total of 179 million users. The platform also finds remarkable popularity in
Indonesia and Brazil (S. Dixon, 2022). With more than 91 million Facebook users, the
Philippines is currently ranked fifth globally in terms of the number of Facebook users, behind
Brazil, the United States, Indonesia, and India. When it comes to the dangers of internet trouble
or privacy threats, the amount of Facebook users in the nation can be very alarming.

Why is Facebook so Widely Used?

Young people are natural-born multi-taskers, so using Facebook, as with any social
networking website, is almost second nature to many teens. Social networking networks give
young people the freedom to explore their identities. Teens may share their own, unfettered
voices with peers online, which makes them popular. Some teenagers believe they can express
themselves more freely online than in the real world because they believe it to be a more secure
environment. Teenagers love Facebook because they can personalize their profile and aside from
that, the site has made communicating much easier too. Although Facebook has been so useful in
almost every way, it can also put the identity and privacy of the users at risk, especially the
young ones.

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Facebook and Its Risk

However, despite its widespread use, Facebook poses a number of concerns for its
younger users. That’s why many countries across the globe impose different acts concerning not
allowing teens under 18 years old to use the platform for safety purposes. The common issues
that the younger generation is facing in using Facebook is the Threat of Privacy. Teenagers can
occasionally forget that what they post on Facebook is essentially a kind of publishing and that
anybody can read the content unless their profiles are set to private. Teenagers frequently divulge
too much personal information online, such as phone numbers or images.

Facebook: Threats to Privacy

A survey conducted by Mr. Harvey Jones and Mr. Jose Hiram Soltren on December 14,
2005, aimed to examine how Facebook affects privacy and found serious flaws in the system.
According to them, Privacy on Facebook is undermined by three principal factors: users disclose
too much, Facebook does not take adequate steps to protect user privacy, and third parties are
actively seeking out end-user information using Facebook (H. Jones and J.H. Soltren, 2005).

Mindless information sharing on social media, particularly Facebook, can provide predators the
information they need to compromise your privacy. The younger Facebook users are the ones
who are most in danger from this problem. The feedback on the survey they conducted in the
end-user finding survey of MIT students and statistical analysis of Facebook data from MIT,
Harvard, NYU, and the University of Oklahoma clearly showed that most of the end-users of
Facebook do not feel secure with the data they provide on Facebook and because of that, some of
them do not provide all the important information on Facebook.

Privacy Protection Strategies on Facebook: The Internet Privacy Paradox Revisited

A study conducted by A.L. Young and A. Quan-Haase on the privacy paradox describes
people's willingness to disclose personal information on social network sites despite expressing
high levels of concern. The researchers employ the distinction between institutional and social
privacy to examine this phenomenon and investigate what strategies undergraduate students have

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developed, and their motivations for using specific strategies. The findings imply that students
have created a number of privacy-related tactics in addition to using the privacy settings that are
provided by default. These tactics—which include omitting contact information, choosing the
limited profile option, removing and untagging photos, and limiting friend requests from
strangers—are largely employed to protect against social privacy risks (A.L. Young and A.Quan-
Haase, 2013).

In addition, the researchers come to the conclusion that social privacy issues are more
prevalent. Institutional privacy was not a major concern, and there were no safeguards in place to
guard against risks associated with the use of personal data by institutions. It shows that the
gathering, aggregation, and use of personal data for targeted advertising has evolved into a social
norm, which is crucial for policy discussions.

Information Revelation and Internet Privacy Concerns on Social Network Sites: A Case
Study of Facebook

Despite concerns raised about the disclosure of personal information on social network
sites, research has demonstrated that users continue to disclose personal information (A.L.
Young and A.Quan-Haase, 2009). Their study employs surveys and interviews to examine the
factors that influence university students to disclose personal information on Facebook.
Moreover, to study the strategies students have developed to protect themselves against privacy
threats.

The findings reveal a positive correlation between personal network size and information
disclosure, a negative correlation between students' concerns about internet privacy and
information disclosure, and no correlation between concern about unwanted audiences and
information disclosure. Personal information was excluded most frequently, private email
messages were used, and default privacy settings were changed, among other privacy protection
techniques. To build a model of information disclosure and draw inferences for theories of
identity expression based on our findings.

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Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences

An inquiry conducted by B. Debatin, J. P. Lovejoy, et al. (2009) tries to investigate

Facebook users' awareness of privacy issues and perceived benefits and risks of utilizing
Facebook. In their study, they have found out that Facebook is deeply integrated in users' daily
lives and users also claimed to understand privacy issues, yet reported uploading large amounts
of personal information. Risks to privacy invasion were ascribed more to others than to the self.
However, users reporting privacy invasion were more likely to change privacy settings than
those merely hearing about others' privacy invasions (B. Debatin, J. P. Lovejoy, et al. 2009).

The findings imply that this relaxed attitude may be caused by a combination of high
satisfaction, usage patterns, and a third-person effect-like psychological process. Thus, user
attitudes would need to shift in order for social network services to be used safely.

New Privacy Threats for Facebook and Twitter Users

With around 1 billion active users, Facebook and Twitter are two of the most famous
social networking websites. One particular aspect of these social networks widely discussed in
the news and heavily researched in academic circles is the privacy of their users. Shah Mahmood
(2012) with his study entitled New Privacy Threats for Facebook and Twitter Users aims to
introduce five new privacy leaks in Facebook and in Twitter.

First, it was revealed how an attacker can utilize Facebook's account recovery tool to link
users' email addresses to their real names. This mapping enables an attacker to learn more about
the owner of an email account, knowledge that may subsequently be utilized to execute more
precise spam campaigns. Second, explain how an attacker can recreate a victim's Facebook
friend list even if the victim's privacy settings prevent the attacker from explicitly viewing the
victim's friend list. Third, demonstrate the extra privacy breaches brought on by Facebook's
Timeline. Fourth, demonstrate how social plugins' unparalleled connectedness violates a user's
privacy. In the fifth section, the discussion of social network relay assaults (Shah Mahmood,
2012).

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Conclusion

Technology is indeed a powerful invention human has ever invented but it should be used
with limitations. Facebook users has all the right to display their information in the public but
they should be careful and mindful to dangers such as privacy threats, predators, cyberbullying
or anything harmful. Any social media platforms can be means of privacy threat, cyberbullying
and many more, but as a country that has over 91 million Facebook users across the globe,
people should take action on themselves and be accountable against privacy threatening, and
other crimes committed in cyber world. Young users of Facebook should know the basic privacy
rules of the platforms to avoid getting into the bad situation or trouble. Let your account be
protected and be responsible on the things that matters. Everyone is at risk but not everyone
should risk it!

Additionally, it can also be addicting because some people do not just feel compelled to
use Facebook, but their Facebook use has become so out of control that it interferes with work,
studies, relationships and normal social functioning. This is the point when a habit turns into an
addiction or a pathological disorder.

Lastly in people’s privacy, as more data is posted online, there is a greater risk that
hackers, businesses, and nefarious outsiders will mine it for purposes that compromise privacy.

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 References

Gross, R., Acquisti, A.: Privacy and information revelation in online social networks. In:

Proceedings of the ACM CCS Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (WPES

2005) (2005) https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11957454_3

Debatin Bernhard & Lovejoy Jennette P. (2009). Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes,

Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences. Journal of Computer – Mediated

Communication https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/15/1/83/4064812

Jones, J. & Soltren J.H. (2005). Facebook:Threats to Privacy.

http://ocw.fudutsinma.edu.ng/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-

805-ethics-and-the-law-on-the-electronic-frontier-fall-2005/projects/facebook.pdf

Mahmood S. (2012). New Privacy Threats for Facebook and Twitter.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6362964/authors#authors

Young, L.A. & Quan-Haase A. (2013). https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1556460.1556499