Privacy Issues on Social Networking
Platforms: the Case of Facebook
Master Thesis
Jaleh Mazaji
University of Neuchâtel
April, 2016
3
UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG
Faculty of Science
Department of Informatics
eXascale Infolab
Thesis for the Master of Science in Computer Science
Supervised by Prof. Dr. Philippe Cudré-Mauroux
by Jaleh Mazaji
Abstract
The social networking service, Facebook, is the largest social network with the
highest number of users worldwide. Like other social networking sites, Facebook
allows users to share ideas, pictures, posts, activities, and events. Despite its extensive
privacy policies, Facebook for commercial reasons allows third-party access to a large
amount of information about each user, from shopping habits to health records. This
has raised many privacy concerns during the last few years. In the first part of this
thesis, based on a literature search, Facebook‘s privacy policies over the last decade
are described and their potential effects on the social network‘s users is analyzed.
In the second part of this thesis, based on our survey of respondents living in
Switzerland, compared with those in Iran, we attempt to learn how Facebook‘s
privacy policies are understood by its users and what actions they are taking, if any, to
guard their privacy. We also queried a third group - Iranians living in the Europe or
Canada - to see whether their responses differed significantly from responses from the
other two groups.
We found that members of all three groups experienced the same problems with
Facebook‘s privacy policies; ie, their personal information could be intercepted by
third parties. Whether or not they lacked knowledge about those policies - and
Facebook‘s privacy policies are publicly available, although arguably difficult to
interpret and apply - our study participants by and large felt that the information they
posted on this social network is not secure. Surprisingly, more Iranians living in Iran
had a higher opinion of Facebook‘s respect for human rights and privacy than did the
members of the other two groups living in Europe or Canada, and they actually took
fewer steps to guard themselves from third-party surveillance of their information,
despite the risk of disapproval by their government. Like those members of the other
two groups, they knew their identities, networks and postings were transparent, but
they used Facebook anyway because they found it free, useful, and in some cases
essential.
Keywords: Social Network, Facebook, Privacy, Facebook Timeline, Human Rights,
Facebook Privacy Policy, Data Privacy.
5
Acknowledgements
First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Dr.
Philippe Cudré-Mauroux for his guidance, advice and support over my master
program. His positive and encouraging attitude was priceless.
I greatly appreciate my parents for their endless support and unconditional love. None
of my accomplishments would have been possible without their continuous support.
I would also like to thank all people who participated in my survey for this research
project. Without their passionate participation and input, the validation survey could
not be successfully conducted.
Last but definitely not least, my special thanks to my friend Reginald Rhein, a former
journalist with Business Week magazine, for his time and valuable comments and
editing on my thesis.
Jaleh Mazaji
April 2016
7
Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................... 3
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ 5
List of Figures ................................................................................................................ 9
List of Tables ............................................................................................................... 11
Abbreviations ............................................................................................................... 13
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 15
1.1 Context .......................................................................................................... 15
1.2 Problem statement ......................................................................................... 15
1.3 Study questions ............................................................................................. 16
1.4 Report Structure ............................................................................................ 16
2 History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015 ............................................... 19
2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 19
2.2 Analysis and Comparison of 2005 to 2010 Privacy Policies ........................ 21
2.2.1 Analysis of 2005 Privacy Policy ............................................................ 21
2.2.2 Comparison of 2005 and 2006 Privacy Policies .................................... 22
2.2.3 Comparison of 2006 and 2007 Privacy Policies .................................... 23
2.2.4 Analysis of 2008 Privacy Policy ............................................................ 23
2.2.5 Comparison of 2007 with 2009 Privacy Policies ................................... 23
2.2.6 Comparison of 2009 with 2010 (April) Privacy Policies....................... 24
2.3 Analysis and Comparison of 2011-2015 to earlier Privacy Policies ............. 26
2.3.1 Analysis of 2011 Privacy Policy ............................................................ 27
2.3.2 Analysis of 2012 Privacy Policy ............................................................ 27
2.3.3 Comparison of 2011 and 2012 Privacy Policies .................................... 28
2.3.4 Comparison of 2012 and 2013 Privacy Policies .................................... 29
2.3.5 Analysis of 2014 Privacy Policy ............................................................ 29
2.3.6 Analysis of 2015 Privacy Policy ............................................................ 30
8 Contents
2.4 Result and Discussion ................................................................................... 31
3 Facebook Survey ..................................................................................................... 33
3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 33
3.2 Study Hypotheses .......................................................................................... 33
3.3 Methodology and Survey Questions ............................................................. 34
3.4 Results and Discussion .................................................................................. 34
3.5 Analysis and Summary of Study Results ...................................................... 55
4 Study Limitations .................................................................................................... 57
5 Conclusions and future work ................................................................................... 59
5.1 Conclusions ................................................................................................... 59
5.2 Answers to Study Questions ......................................................................... 59
5.3 Future Work .................................................................................................. 61
Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire ............................................................................. 63
References .................................................................................................................... 67
9
List of Figures
Figure 2.1: One user‘s Facebook pages, including several tabs and buttons .............. 20
Figure 2.2: Matt Mckeon‘s chart [6], year 2005 .......................................................... 21
Figure 2.3: Matt Mckeon‘s chart[6], year 2006 ........................................................... 22
Figure 2.4: Matt Mckeon‘s chart[6], year 2007 ........................................................... 23
Figure 2.5: Matt Mckeon‘s chart [6]; (a) November 2009, (b) December 2009. ........ 24
Figure 2.6: Matt Mckeon‘s chart[6], year 2007 ........................................................... 26
Figure 2.7: Labels 1-5 show access level of each Facebook element. ....................... 31
Figure 3.1 : Results of Q9 ............................................................................................ 38
Figure 3.2: Results of Q11 ........................................................................................... 39
Figure 3.3: Results of Q13 ........................................................................................... 40
Figure 3.4: Results of Q13 (Considered by gender). ................................................... 40
Figure 3.5: Results of Q14 ........................................................................................... 41
Figure 3.6: Results of Q15 ........................................................................................... 42
Figure 3.7: Results of Q16 ........................................................................................... 43
Figure 3.8: Results of Q17 ........................................................................................... 44
Figure 3.9: Results of Q.17 (Considered by gender) ................................................... 45
Figure 3.10: Results of Q18. ........................................................................................ 46
Figure 3.11: Results of Q20 ......................................................................................... 48
Figure 3.12: Results of Q21 ......................................................................................... 49
Figure 3.13: Results of Q22 ......................................................................................... 50
Figure 3.14: Results of Q23 ......................................................................................... 51
Figure 3.15: Results of Q24 ......................................................................................... 52
10 List of Figures
Figure 3.16: Results of Q25 ......................................................................................... 52
11
List of Tables
Table 3.1: Number of responses based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA) .............. 34
Table 3.2: Our survey responses based on gender and our three categories ............... 35
Table 3.3: Age ranges for 101 responses .................................................................... 35
Table 3.4: Overview of responses depend whether they use Facebook ...................... 35
Table 3.5: Overview of our survey responses based on our three categories (I), (S),
(IA) without considering gender .................................................................................. 36
Table 3.6: Overview of our survey responses based on our three categories (I), (S),
(IA) considering gender ............................................................................................... 37
Table 3.7: Importance of Facebook’s respect for privacy ........................................... 39
Table 3.8: Overview on Q14 based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA) ................... 42
Table 3.9: Overview on Q17 based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA) ................... 44
Table 3.10: Overview on Q17 considered by gender .................................................. 45
Table 3.11: Overview on Q22 based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA) ................. 50
13
Abbreviations
EPIC Electronic Privacy Information Center
FB
FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
FoF
FTC
I
IA
ID
S
WWW
Friend of Friend
Federal Trade Commission
People who live in Iran (primarily Iranian citizens)
Iranians who live abroad (primarily in Europe or Canada)
Identification (code)
Non-Iranians (primarily Swiss) who live in Switzerland
World Wide Web
15
Chapter 1
1 Introduction
1.1 Context
Today, there is an ever-expanding global tendency across almost all the demographic
groups to use social networks [1-2]. Among all, Facebook1 is the largest social
network with the highest number of users in the World Wide Web (WWW). As of the
fourth quarter of 2015, Facebook had 1.59 billion monthly active users [3].
Facebook, similar to other social networking sites, allows users to share ideas,
pictures, posts, activities, and events. Users also put their personal information on
Facebook by simply answering Facebook's basic questions about their background
(e.g. gender, their location, their job, their interests, … ) Thus, Facebook can collect a
large amount of information about each user. Facebook will not only make the
answers to basic questions available to advertisers but also their posts, etc [4].
Facebook mentions “We collect information when you visit or use third-party
websites and apps that use our Services (like when they offer our Like button or
Facebook Log In or use our measurement and advertising services” [5].
Demand for this personal information has exploded in recent years. Users‘ personal
information contains everything from shopping habits to health records. Companies
can compile enormous amounts of information about each user. Facebook is one of
the best sources for third parties to collect available personal information at little or
no cost. The availability of the information has raised many privacy concerns
especially during the last few years.
1.2 Problem statement
Beside the advantages of Facebook, the problem of the social network‘s lack of
privacy is an evolving issue not limited to commercial invasions. A major problem for
users in ―closed‖ compared with ―open‖ societies 2 is the government‘s potential
access to the users‘ private information, including their identities (if hidden), their
1 https://www.facebook.com
2 We define a ―closed‖ society as one in which the government restricts what internet users can post
and/or see on their Facebook pages, and an ―open‖ society as one that has no such restrictions.
16 Chapter 1. Introduction
network of friends, and their private comments - especially those of a political nature.
In some countries, people have been punished after sharing their political ideas with
members of their social network, not realizing that their online activity is transparent
to everyone, including their governments.
Even in open societies, which do not monitor Facebook, disclosure of the user‘s
personal information could lead to major difficulties for them, including problems of
an emotional, honor, career, or political nature. For example, a man might lose his job
after the unwanted release of unreported information about his health; a woman could
be the subject of sexual harassment after an embarrassing picture is uploaded without
her knowledge or approval.
It has not been evident how Facebook users in ―open‖ and ―closed‖ societies
understand these problems, how they view them, and to what extent they react to
them by modifying their online behavior.
1.3 Study questions
The problem cited in Section 1.2 of Facebook's lack of privacy raises several
questions which are dealt with in the following two chapters.
In Chapter 2, describing the evolution of Facebook's privacy policies between 2005
and 2015, the major questions are:
1. How and why has Facebook changed its privacy policies over the past
decade? and
2. How and why might Facebook choose to continue or modify its privacy
settings in the future?
In Chapter 3, describing our study of Facebook users in ―open‖ and ―closed‖
societies, we tried to ascertain:
3. What are the general needs of Facebook users regarding privacy?
4. How are these different for users in ―open‖ versus ―closed‖ societies?
5. Do users find Facebook controls easy to use, and do they use them?
6. How do Facebook users in these different societies modify their online
behavior to meet their particular privacy needs?
1.4 Report Structure
In Chapter 2, we review the privacy problems that have arisen on Facebook since
their emergence, drawing largely on the work of Matt McKeon [6] and Kurt Opsahl
[7] for their analysis of Facebook‘s privacy policies over the past ten years. In
addition to comparing these changes year to year from 2005 through 2010, we created
our own graph to better illustrate these changes between 2005-2010 in terms of
identity (name, picture, birthday, etc.), contacts (―friends‖, networks, etc.), and
personal opinions (of other people, events, government programs, commercial
products, etc.). For changes between 2010 and 2015, we drew on articles by
Chapter 1. Introduction 17
commentators including Sharon Profis [8], Emil Protalinski [9], Sarah Jacobsson
Purewal [10], Sarah A. Downey [11], Victoria Woollaston [12], Vindu Goel [13], and
Gordon Gottsegen [16].
In Chapter 3, we compare Facebook users living in ―open‖ societies with those living
in a ―closed‖ society. As a control, the study also has included users from a ―closed‖
society temporarily living in an ―open‖ society, to see if their knowledge and
reactions are different from those of the other two groups. For this comparison we
created three categories: 1 – People who live in Iran (primarily Iranian citizens) (I); 2-
Iranians who live abroad (primarily in Europe or Canada) (IA), and 3- Non-Iranians
(primarily Swiss) who live in Switzerland (S). The results of this survey are examined
to see the differences between these three groups concerning their use of and attitudes
toward their privacy protection on Facebook.
Chapter 4 explains the limitations of our study and its results. Chapter 5 gives our
conclusions and recommendations for future work.
19
Chapter 2
2 History of Facebook’s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015
2.1 Introduction
Understanding the evolution of Facebook‘s privacy policies over the last ten years
will help us to better formulate and understand the answers to thesis research
questions in Chapter 3, which seek to ascertain how these changes are perceived by
users, and how (or whether) users change their internet behavior as a result of their
understanding. Specifically, thesis research in Chapter 3 focuses on the differences in
attitudes toward those policies in ―open‖ societies (Europe and Canada) and in a
―closed‖ society (Iran).
Thus, Chapter 2 focuses on Facebook Privacy Policy history from 2005 to 2015, from
which we will learn the following: 1- How and why has Facebook changed its privacy
policies over the past decade; and 2- How and why Facebook might choose to
continue or modify its privacy settings in the future. We have relied on published
reports of Facebook Privacy Policy to find answers to these questions.
In the following subsections of Chapter 2, we are indebted to Matt McKeon [6] and
Kurt Opsahl [7] for their analyses of Facebook‘s privacy policies from 2005 to 2010.
We have used Matt Mckeon‘s charts and Kurt Opsahl timeline to compare each year
with the next, with the exception of 2008, for which there is no data. Our own
contribution to this section is the creation of a chart showing how the policies from
2005 through 2006 changed in terms of highest vs lowest levels of privacy in 11
areas: Likes, Name, Picture, Gender, Other Profile Data, Birthday, Friends, Contact
information, Networks, Wall Posts and Photos.
We have adopted Mckeon‘s definition of ―Like‖ as a person, band, movie, web page,
or any other entity represented on Facebook‘s social graph that has a ―like‖ button [6].
We define ―Friends‖ as those who will receive the user‘s posts after he/she includes
them in his/her network by pushing the Add Friend button.
On the following page, we have adopted a fictitious Facebook page to illustrate this.
20 Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015
(a) Likes Tab
(b) Timeline Tab
Figure 2.1: One user‘s Facebook pages, including several tabs and buttons3.
3 These Facebook pages are in the public realm, screenshot from my personal account.
Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015 21
Figure 2.1 (a) and Figure 2.1(b) : Just below Baraka Obamaa's name and photograph
there are several tabs, from ―Timeline‖ to ―More‖. "Timeline" dates the posts on
Obamaa's Facebook page. By clicking the appropriate button, anyone viewing this
page can see Obamaa's 75 "Friends," or the "Photos" he has added to the page, or the
profile he has written "About" himself, or his "Likes". To show their agreement with
his "Likes," viewers can click the thumb-up symbols next to them (for example, Easy
E, or 2pac). If they want Obamaa to list them as a "Friend", they can click the ―Add
friend‖ button (it is then up to Obamaa whether to "friend" them and allow them even
more access). By clicking on the ―Message‖ button, viewers can send a written
message or, if both parties are online, they can ―Chat‖ with each other.
2.2 Analysis and Comparison of 2005 to 2010 Privacy Policies
2.2.1 Analysis of 2005 Privacy Policy
As we see in Figure 2.2, the Like button did not exist in 2005. Now it is one of the
most important aspects in Facebook for gathering information. Available information
in 2005 on Facebook was Gender, Picture, Name and Networks, which were
accessible for all Facebook users. Photos, Wall posts and Friends were available up to
the level of Network. The other categories of information were limited to the level of
Friends.
Figure 2.2: Matt Mckeon‘s chart [6], year 2005
22 Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015
Figure 2.3: Matt Mckeon‘s chart[6], year 2006
2.2.2 Comparison of 2005 and 2006 Privacy Policies
As we see in Figure 2.3 in 2006, compared to 2005, the only important difference that
we see is the increasing of number of users, which shows how rapidly this social
network – and the availability of information on it – is increasing. In 2006, the Likes
button has not yet been created.
In the years of our study, we wanted to know whether only members of a specific
group (―friends‖) could access the other members‘ information. In 2005, this was the
case. A user‘s information was inaccessible to those not designated to receive it.
Comparing 2005 data privacy with 2006, we saw that in 2006 Facebook improved its
privacy settings by adding the “Control Section” for users to choose who can have
access to their information between the groups. This raised two important questions
that we attempt to answer in Chapter 3 in our survey of 101 Facebook users: What
proportion of users actually use this control section? Is it easy to use?
The answers to these questions will help us see the impact of modifying Facebook‘s
privacy policy. For example, there is evidence that in 2005 Facebook added its
Control Section to keep its existing users and entice new ones, who had begun to
worry about widespread dissemination of their supposedly private information. In
both 2005 and 2006, it was less important to the company to expand the recipients of
this information to others besides those in the users‘ own network than it became
later, when Facebook allowed third-parties access to this data, primarily for
commercial reasons.
Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015 23
2.2.3 Comparison of 2006 and 2007 Privacy Policies
Compared to 2006, it can be seen from Figure 2.4 that the users‘ profile information
in 2007 is now available to anyone who belonged to any of the Facebook networks,
unless the user opted out through the Privacy Control setting. Also, the profile picture
thumbnail has become available in search results across Facebook unless the users
change the privacy setting. During this period, the total number of users increased
rapidly, as has been the case in every year since.
Figure 2.4: Matt Mckeon‘s chart[6], year 2007
2.2.4 Analysis of 2008 Privacy Policy
We have no information of important changes for this year.
2.2.5 Comparison of 2007 with 2009 (November-December) Privacy Policies
From Figure 2.5 (a) and Figure 2.5 (b), we can see several important privacy policy
changes imposed by Facebook in November and December 2009.
24 Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015
(a)
(b)
Figure 2.5: Matt Mckeon‘s chart [6]; (a) November 2009, (b) December 2009.
In November 2009, all categories of information except ―Contact info‖ are available
to Facebook users up to the level of Friend of Friend (FoF). In December, Facebook
instituted its ―Likes‖ button, with access up to the entire Internet level. Also in this
period, some of the users‘ personal information on Facebook – ie, gender, username,
Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015 25
picture and networks – became available at the level of the entire Internet. Moreover,
information about Friends became available from the FoF level to all Facebook users.
In 2009, Facebook created further control options for users, where they could decide
with whom they would like to share their information. It should be noted that the
default was access of the information to everyone. It meant that even the individuals
who were not in Facebook could see a member‘s information by just entering his/her
profile into a search.
Although Facebook‘s privacy policy improved over this period, the potential damages
to uninformed users still remained. One of the questions which this thesis will attempt
to answer in Chapter 3 is the proportion of Facebook users who have taken time to
follow the gradual changes, and thus whether some may have missed the opportunity
to modify their profile settings to their preference.
In December 2009, according to Kurt Opsahl [7]: ―Certain categories of information
such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender,
geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to
everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have
privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information
through search using your search privacy settings.‖
However, Facebook has not made it easy to understand the changes and methods of
uses that it has set out in its Privacy Policies. The default is for increased visibility of
the user‘s information.
2.2.6 Comparison of 2009 (November-December) with 2010 (April) Privacy
Policies
After 2009, the real privacy challenges to the Facebook user begin. In the period
November-December 2009 through April 2010, we see new privacy controls imposed
on Facebook users. These have enhanced the opportunities of third parties to gather
the users‘ data for their own purposes.
As we see in Figure 2.6, in April 2010, a large amount of personal information,
including ―Wall posts‖, ―Birthday‖, ―Photos‖, and ―Other Profile Data‖, became
increasingly accessible from the FoF level to the level of ―The entire Internet‖. Since
then, the default setting for each user has been full exposure of this information to the
public at large.
26 Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015
Figure 2.6: Matt Mckeon‘s chart[6], year 2007
In April 2010 Compared to November-December 2009, the possibility of third-party
access to the users‘ information was increased. By default, general information such
as list of friends, profile pictures, gender user ID, connections, etc. became available
to the public. Furthermore, when users were getting connected with applications or
websites, the application or website could get access to their general information.
Privacy settings only control who can see our connection on our profile page. If
Facebook users are not happy about that, they can remove or not make the
connection.
So why did Facebook make it so easy for third parties to access users‘ private
information? The answer is advertising revenue.
―While many users still wrongly think that Facebook will charge users because they
aren’t able to pay for the site, the reality is that advertising is proving to be a very big
business for Facebook [8].”
2.3 Analysis and Comparison of 2011-2015 to earlier Privacy
Policies
In this section we gathered our information from different sites, and compared the
years from 2011-2015 to the years 2005-2010. Limitations of the data are noted in
Chapter 4.
Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015 27
2.3.1 Analysis of 2011 Privacy Policy
In this year, according to Sharon Profis [9], concerns by Facebook users that third-
party access to their information might be compromised grew to the point where the
company decided it had to improve its privacy controls. However, since Facebook‘s
revenue now came primarily from advertising, the company had to square the circle
of meeting user‘s privacy concerns with maintaining access of users‘ data by
advertisers. Keeping data transparency the default position, Facebook could with
honesty claim that its users had complete control over their private information, so
long as they successfully navigated the shoals of its voluminous privacy settings.
Facebook‘s latest privacy controls came in a wealth of options:
1- Controlling the app permissions. The default access policy was not changed, but it
became possible for the user to decide whether or not to grant certain permissions to
the apps.
2- Exploring the privacy setting. This primarily concerns how tagging of members in
a photo worked.
3- Hiding the recent activity log. This is a record of the user´s recent activities such as
adding someone to the Friends list. The recent activities were posted on the user`s
timeline and also on Friends´ News Feed page.
4- Adjusting the privacy info, friends and photos. This included the possibility of
choosing the level of privacy on some recently shared information such as ―current
place.‖
5- Hiding the personal phone number. This option allowed users to choose the ―only
me‖ level for the personal cellphone number and not letting others gain access to this
number.
In 2011, as Facebook became more popular, the urge for offering better privacy
settings to the users grew further and Facebook offered the mentioned options to its
users.
2.3.2 Analysis of 2012 Privacy Policy
Because of a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission the preceding year,
Facebook´s new ―timeline‖ concept changed users‘ privacy settings.
According to Sharon Profis [9]: “On November 2011, Facebook has agreed to settle
with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Then from this time for each change
made to the privacy settings, users needed to agree first.”
Another observer, Emil Protalinski [10], says the main concern was centered on
privacy through obscurity. EPIC had insisted that the FTCs‘ November 2011
settlement does not allow privacy through obscurity, but Facebook strongly disagreed.
The problem was that before this policy change, the user could choose whether
his/her new friendships could get announced. The change would have allowed access
to all the user‘s Friends of his/her monthly activities, such as becoming friends with
another user.
28 Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015
Furthermore, the chronological arrangement of the changes allowed other users to
quickly scroll through the history of activities of a Friend, according to Sarah
Jacobsson Purewal [11].
“Once you've successfully hidden or deleted all of your Timeline posts, it's time to
move onto other people. This is perhaps a more important step than deleting the posts
on your Timeline, because you have no control over how other people protect their
Facebook privacy (or don't).”
2.3.3 Comparison of 2011 and 2012 Privacy Policies
A November 26, 2012 article by Sarah A. Downey, highlighted the five biggest
changes to Facebook‘s privacy policy that year [12].
First, Facebook started sharing the user‘s personal data with more people. Under this
change Facebook could share a user´s information for advertisement purposes with
advertisers and also with whomever the advertisers are cooperating. The data included
all the users‘ Likes, and also what was written as a comment on a post or in private
messages.
According to Downey, Facebook said that this data could include sensitive
information such as religion, health status, and political views, as well as whatever
information was in the user‘s profile. Moreover it could also include information
gathered by a user‘s Instagram account. From this year on, it would then be very easy
for a third party to follow a user‘s activity on Facebook and other sites to which
he/she was linked.
Second, it would no longer be possible to limit who could send private messages to
the Facebook user. Previously, it was possible to control the user‘s private message
reception through his/her ―How You Connect‖ settings. Now, any Facebook member,
including advertisers or anyone else with a Facebook account, could send private
massages to one or more other Facebook members; further, all the recipients of the
message thread could reply to it. This has resulted in Facebook members receiving
advertisements and spam messages.
Third, in 2012 Facebook started to launch an online advertising network. This
extended data sharing included not only Facebook´s advertising partners and
customers, but also the advertisers‘ partner. Facebook also expanded the type of
tracking from cookies ―system technologies in order to serve ads.‖ This further
allowed users‘ private information to get easily into the hands of third parties,
resulting in even less privacy for the user.
Fourth, Facebook has made the possibility of voting for its policies increasingly
difficult. It has allowed for a vote on a proposed change if more than 7,000 people
have commented on it. But after 2012, for a vote to be binding, at least 30% of
Facebook‘s users had to weigh in. Currently, this means 300 million people have to
vote, a number that is more than twice the number of those who voted in the 2012
U.S. presidential election. This new rule has essentially disabled collective voting.
Fifth, Facebook released additional clarification that nearly everything a user had
posted on its site would be visible to everyone, even if the user had limited its
visibility later on. In several places in the proposed data use policy, Facebook
reminded members that its privacy settings are limited. The company stressed that
Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015 29
even hiding an activity or post on the timeline will not necessarily eliminate it.
Although the information will often become hidden from the user, yet it may remain
visible in a search result by anyone. Also information such as timeline and posts
might remain available through a link to another Internet site.
2.3.4 Comparison of 2012 and 2013 Privacy Policies
There were three main changes in 2013 compared with 2012.
In January 2013, social search tools were available for Facebook‘s engineers for
testing purposes.
After the testing period, in July 2013 an updated search feature became available to
users to facilitate their search for other members, photos, and places on the website.
Facebook claimed that this feature would maximize availability of information for its
members, which they claimed is the ultimate goal of social networks.
In July 2013, the updated search feature became available for users for searching the
other members, photos, and places in the website.
In October 2013, Facebook removed privacy settings for Timeline searches [13].
That month, Facebook removed the ability of users to limit who could search for
them. Facebook claimed that a very small number of its members were using its
search-blocking feature, but that users could nevertheless protect against unwanted
searches by specifically putting the limitation of availability directly into their posts.
Still, they warned that users‘ pictures and information could be made available by
searching by his/her name. The company encouraged those who care about their
privacy to choose to limit searches for each post or photo put on the social network
site. It added that users could still access the Privacy Settings and limit the audience
of posts which they had shared in the past [14].
2.3.5 Analysis of 2014 Privacy Policy
In an article in the New York Times on January 29, 2014, titled ―Flipping the
Switches on Facebook‘s Privacy Controls,‖ Vindu Goel described the frustrating
process of keeping Facebook posts private [15].
According to Goel, most Facebook users believe that what they post is shared only
with their friends, but it is not true. To truly protect the privacy of their posts, they
should go to their Facebook settings and actively control the audience by choosing for
each addressee: Public, Friends, Only Me, or Customize. Navigating this labyrinth is
tricky because if Friends or Public is chosen for one post, it will become the default
for future posts until it is changed again. To ensure privacy, each user must exert
stricter control over his/her Facebook settings.
One Facebook principle is that users choose the audience of their posts by controlling
their privacy settings. However, this does not work in all cases. For example, when a
user posts a comment or a Likes for a news article or opinion piece, third parties such
as news agencies or broadcasters can attach that comment or Like to the name of the
user. Most users usually do not know this and may not even care about their
30 Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015
comments and posts being disclosed to third parties. Such data can be used by third
parties for perfectly reasonable purposes, such as statistics, or to analyze the reaction
of Facebook users, or even ascertain a political perspective. Or it can serve specific
commercial purposes. It can also be used against the user‘s own interest.
The other problem is that checking whether a post is public or private is not easy,
particularly when surfing in Facebook through a smartphone, using icons or symbols
that are small and easily overlooked.
In another example, if a user passes along a photo of herself taken at a party by a
photographer, she does not have the power to take this photo down. She can untag
herself from the photo and hide it on her profile page. But it would still remain on the
photographer‘s Facebook page, viewable to her friends and all their common friends.
Of course, she could ask the photographer to remove it.
She could also click on ―Report/Remove Tag‖ on the photo and ask Facebook for
help. Facebook doesn‘t charge users for its services. As previously mentioned, the
revenue for Facebook comes from advertising, which is based on user´s activities on
Facebook. Thus, the proprietor of a kindergarten may look for mothers who have
young children. Unfortunately, so might a pedophile.
At this point, we can say that as soon as a person shares something online, it is no
longer private. Even if Facebook modifies its policies to plug a privacy gap, it is
unlikely that most users will pay attention and modify his/her behavior online. Like
most online services, Facebook frequently changes its privacy rules, not always to its
users‘ benefit, so what may have protected them in the past may no longer apply in
the present or future. Obviously, users should constantly keep current on Facebook‘s
policy changes, but the fact is that most users do not spend enough time to learn about
the new updates, considering their obscurity, complexity, and rigidness.
Even family members of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have experienced
privacy problems on the social network site. About a year ago, Randi Zuckerberg, a
former Facebook executive and the sister of the company‘s founder and chief
executive, posted a family photo to her Facebook page; someone who was friends
with another Zuckerberg sister saw it and shared it with the world via Twitter. Ms.
Zuckerberg got angry, but there was not much she could do. The photo is still
available to the world on the Internet. ―So the most fundamental rule of all is: If you
really want something to stay private, don‘t put it on Facebook — or any other social
network [16]‖.
2.3.6 Analysis of 2015 Privacy Policy
According to Gordon Gottsegen [17] in 2015, Facebook became more transparent
about the information it shares. But it did not mean that Facebook had reduced its
sharing of the information. The business model for Facebook was still to gather its
users´ information and share it with interested customers. We can read in detail what
Facebook shares with others, on ―Facebook Data policy 2015 [18]‖.
Because Facebook prefers to expand the possibility of sharing whatever is posted by
its users with more people, by default – if users do not change the privacy setting – all
data would be visible to the entire Friends list.
Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015 31
One of the problems is that many users do not like to be visible in the way that
Facebook likes. One solution offered by Facebook is for the user to control, in his/her
privacy setting, with whom he/she wants to share the data. One easy way might be to
adjust the ―privacy basic‖ feature on Facebook. But such solutions require the user to
always be up-to-date with the periodic changes made to Facebook‗s data policy.
2.4 Result and Discussion
Based on the information we gathered from 2005 up to 2015 privacy policy timeline,
we have devised the following graph, Figure 2.7, which brings the privacy elements of
Matt McKeon's five charts together.
Figure 2.7: Labels 1-5 show access level (―You‖ to ―The Entire Internet‖) of each Facebook element.
The ranges of privacy in this figure come from Matt McKeon‘s charts, considering 1=you (all
information is accessible only to the user himself/herself or his/her staff), 2=Friends (Information is
only available for the user and his/her friends), 3=Network/FoF (information is available for the user
and his/her friends and his/her ―Network‖ – a term that was exchanged for FoF in November 2009),
4=All Facebook users, and 5=The entire Internet.
In Figure 2.7, we separated each concept with a different color, from purple (Photos)
to light blue (Like). For each year, from 2005 up to 2010, we have drawn a tall
cylinder incorporating the concept colors, with numbers designating the strength of
privacy protection ranging from highest (number 1) to lowest (number 5).
2005 2006 2007 2009(Nov) 2009(Dec) 2010
3 3 3 3 3 5
3 3 3 3 3 5
4 4 4 5 5
5
2 2 2 2 2
2
3 3 3
4 5 5
2 2 3 3 3
3
2 2 3 3 3
5
4 4 4 5 5
5
4 4 4 5
5 5
4 4 4 5
5 5
1 1 1 3 5 5
Year
Lev
el o
f P
riv
acy
(L
ow
ests
t =
5,
Hig
hes
t =
1)
Like
Name
Picture
Gender
Other
Profile Data
Birthday
Friends
Contact
Info.
Networks
Wall Posts
Photos
32 Chapter 2. History of Facebook‘s Privacy Policies, 2005-2015
The ranges of privacy in this figure come from Matt McKeon‘s charts, considering
1=you (all information is accessible only to the user himself/herself or his/her staff),
2=Friends (Information is only available for the user and his/her friends),
3=Network/FoF (information is available for the user and his/her friends and his/her
―Network‖ – a term that was exchanged for FoF in November 2009), 4=All Facebook
users (information is available for all Facebook users), and 5=The entire Internet
(information is available for all person on the WWW, whether or not they subscribe to
Facebook).
It should be pointed out that for the three first years – 2005, 2006, and 2007—the
Like button had not yet been created. Consequently, we have given the highest
privacy score (a ―1‖) for the ―Like‖ concept in those years. In the following years,
―Like‖ shows a steady deterioration in its privacy rating, reaching the worst level of
privacy (a ―5‖) in December 2009.
For the year 2009, we have two cylinders – for November and December – because of
the privacy policy changes made in those two months. For the year 2008, there is no
cylinder because we did not find information for that year and assumed there were no
major privacy policy changes.
The chart graphically shows that users‘ privacy on Facebook grew steadily worse
from 2005 to 2010. This had a purpose: to allow Facebook to make money by
allowing third-party (usually commercial) access to users‘ private information for
advertising or other (presumably) legal purposes.
From 2011 to 2015, Facebook tried to hold on to its users, as lack of privacy had
become a problem for many of them, by adding additional privacy control settings.
But it soon became apparent that their privacy status was worse than before 2011. For
one thing, users had trouble keeping up with all the changes, and if they did not
change their settings then, by default, most of their information would be available to
anyone who wanted it.
33
Chapter 3
3 Facebook Survey
3.1 Introduction
In this chapter, we explore the privacy problems described in Chapter 2 as they relate
to Facebook users' in two different settings: a ―closed‖ society where government
reaction to controversial postings can have serious negative effects, and an ―open‖
society where social or economic consequences of transparency are the most
important considerations.
This survey compares attitudes toward Facebook privacy in three countries,
Switzerland, Canada and Iran, where there are different rules for using Facebook.
Although there are privacy concerns for the social network in all three countries,
Iranians using Facebook could be subject to sanctions for violating their government‘s
rules for using the Internet service. For users in Switzerland or Canada, there is no
comparable risk, but any loss of privacy in their Facebook postings could result in
other kinds of harm to them or to their Friends – or even to others.
3.2 Study Hypotheses
In the previous section of this thesis, it can be seen that the evolution of Facebook's
privacy policies has created less, not more, privacy for its users. In this section, it is
the study's hypothesis that Facebook privacy is generally more important for users
who are citizens of authoritarian ―closed‖ societies such as Iran, where non-private
outspokenness can get them into more trouble than it can in ―open‖ societies such as
Switzerland or Canada.
In Iran the government requires Facebook users to use ―filters‖ to eliminate banned
material including apostasy, pornography and - while not specifically defined -
unwarranted criticism of the government. However, pervasive non-compliance with
this requirement has forced Iranian authorities to be selective in enforcing it. The
problem for most Iranian Facebook users is not knowing exactly what will get them
into trouble with the authorities.
To ascertain the differences in attitudes toward Facebook‘s privacy policies in ―open‖
and ―closed‖ societies, we asked questions of respondents in three categories: Iranians
34 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
who live in Iran (I); non-Iranians who live in Switzerland (primarily Swiss, but also
non-Iranian foreign residents) (S); and Iranians who live abroad, mostly in
Switzerland or Canada (IA).
We sought to find the main common aspects between these three categories, and
whether lack of Facebook privacy was perceived as more of a problem in Iran than in
Switzerland or Canada, regardless of whether the respondent was a male or female or
whether he/she was living abroad.
3.3 Methodology and Survey Questions
A survey was created to get answers from Iranians and non-Iranians (primarily Swiss)
to the main questions about the importance of privacy to them and to ascertain their
knowledge about data sharing and about Facebook‘s privacy policies.
Study participants were asked to respond to 26 questions, which are posted in
Appendix A, including 11 Yes/No questions, 13 questions that have selected choice
answers, and two questions that require an explanation. The study also included some
open global questions, which were voluntary, to help us better analyze the results. For
those questions, we included additional information.
In addition to helping us find out whether Facebook users had enough information to
assess whether their postings are private, and whether privacy is actually important to
them, the study questions seek to determine their ongoing problems with Facebook
and any suggestions they have for improving the social network program.
3.4 Results and Discussion
In this section we will see the results of our survey by charts and tables. We will also
discuss and analyze our results.
Study participants:
I Living in Iran 30
S Living in Switzerland 36
IA Iranian who live Abroad 35
Table 3.1: Number of responses based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA)
We received 101 responses from people in these three categories.
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 35
Sum of Response by Sex & Nationality=101
Male Female
I S IA I S IA
12 15 17 18 21 18
Table 3.2: Our survey responses based on gender and our three categories (I), (S), (IA)
Respondents were fairly evenly distributed, although there was a slight excess of
females living in Switzerland.
Age ranges for 101 respons s
16-25 26-35 36-50 <=51
I S IA I S IA I S IA I S IA
5 20 3 17 12 30 3 1 1 5 3 1
Table 3.3: Age ranges for 101 responses
As we see in Table 3.3, 87 of the answers (which are 86% of the 101 responders) are
in the range age of 16-35 years. Consequently, we have mostly considered our results
and analyses in terms of this age range.
Use Facebook
Male Female
Yes No Yes No
I S IA I S IA I S IA I S IA 1
0 = 8
3.33
%
12
= 80
%
16
= 94
.12%
2 = 1
6.6
7%
3 = 2
0%
1 = 5
.88
%
12
= 66
.67%
19
= 90
.48%
18
= 10
0%
6 = 3
3.3
3%
2 = 9
.52
%
0 = 0
%
Table 3.4: Overview of responses depend whether they use Facebook
As we see in Table 3.4, 14 respondents (14%) do not use Facebook. Far higher
percentages of females living outside of Iran use Facebook than those living in Iran.
The same is not true for males living in Iran, where the percentage (83%) is
comparable to Facebook users living outside of Iran.
36 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
Facebook user
Yes No
I S IA I S IA
N P N P N P N P N P N P
Q9: 12 54.55 30 96.77 26 76.47 10 45.45 1 3.23 8 23.53
Q11: 9 40.91 4 12.90 7 20.59 13 59.09 27 87.10 27 79.41
Q13 18 81.82 26 83.87 24 70.59 4 18.18 5 16.13 10 29.41
Q16: 7 31.82 4 12.90 8 23.53 15 68.18 27 87.10 26 76.47
Q18: 12 54.55 10 32.26 17 50.00 10 45.45 21 67.74 17 50.00
Q20: 3 13.64 8 25.81 5 14.71 19 86.36 23 74.19 29 85.29
Q21: 10 45.45 25 80.65 19 55.88 12 54.55 6 19.35 15 44.12
Q23: 17 77.27 30 96.77 32 94.12 5 22.73 1 3.23 2 5.88
Q25: 9 40.91 7 22.58 8 23.53 13 59.09 24 77.42 26 76.47
Table 3.5: Overview of our survey responses based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA) without
considering gender
In Table 3.5, we see the results of answers for the nine Yes/No questions without
considering gender. The blue section is for all these three categories (I), (S), (IA)
where the answer was Yes, and the red section is for persons in these three categories
who answered No. (N) is the numbers of persons and (P) is the percentages.
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 37
Facebook user
Yes No
I S IA I S IA
Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Male
N P N P N P N P N P N P N P N P N P N P N P N P
Q9 5 41.67 7 70 18 94.74 12 100 13 72.22 13 81.25 7 59.33 3 30 1 5.26 0 0 5 27.78 3 18.75
Q11 4 33.33 5 50 1 5.26 3 25 4 22.22 3 18.75 8 66.67 5 50 18 94.74 9 75 14 77.78 13 81.25
Q13 10 83.33 8 80 16 84.21 10 83.33 15 83.33 9 56.25 2 16.67 2 20 3 15.79 2 16.67 3 16.67 7 43.75
Q16 5 41.67 2 20 4 21.05 0 0 4 22.22 4 25 7 59.33 8 80 15 78.95 12 100 14 77.78 12 75
Q18 5 41.67 7 70 5 26.32 5 41.67 10 55.56 7 43.75 7 59.33 3 30 14 73.68 7 59.33 8 44.44 9 56.25
Q20 2 16.67 1 10 6 31.58 2 16.67 2 11.11 3 18.75 10 83.33 9 90 13 68.42 10 83.33 16 88.89 13 81.25
Q21 5 41.67 5 50 16 84.21 9 75 11 61.11 8 50 7 59.33 5 50 3 15.79 3 25 7 38.89 8 50
Q23 9 75 8 80 19 100 11 91.67 18 100 14 87.5 3 25 2 20 0 0 1 9.33 0 0 2 12.5
Q25 6 50 3 30 4 21.05 3 25 5 27.78 3 18.75 6 50 7 70 15 78.95 9 75 13 72.22 13 81.25
Table 3.6: Overview of our survey responses based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA) considering gender
In Table 3.6 we see the results of answers for the nine Yes/No questions when considering gender. The blue section is for all these three
categories (I), (S), (IA) where the answer was Yes, and the green section is for persons in these three categories who answered No. (N) is the
numbers of persons and (P) is the percentages.
38 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
In Figure 3.1, it can be seen that there are differences in responses depending on
whether Facebook users were Swiss (S) or Iranians (I), and also whether Iranians used
the social network application at home or abroad. In addition there are even greater
differences between male and female Iranian users of Facebook, particularly those
using it in Iran. The gender differences for Swiss Facebook users were minimal.
Q9: Do you know Facebook can share your information with third parties?
Figure 3.1: Results of Q9
Thus, 100% of male Swiss users versus about 95% female Swiss users know that
Facebook shares their information with third parties. These Swiss users for the most
part are either students or employed persons with higher education – i.e., bachelors,
masters or doctorate degrees – it can be concluded from their responses to the study‘s
questions on age, level of education and occupation (Q2-Q4).
Though the percentages are somewhat less, Iranians living abroad show similar
understanding of Facebook‘s lack of privacy. Thus, 81% of Iranian male users who
live abroad and 72% of Iranian female users who live abroad are aware that Facebook
shares their information with third parties. One reason for the high level of awareness
of Iranian users who live outside of Iran could be that lack of privacy in general is a
major concern of the media and academia in Europe, compared with Iran.
Gender differences become highly significant for Iranians who use Facebook at home
in Iran. For male users, 70% are aware of the privacy problem compared to only about
42% of female users. To put it another way, 30% of males versus nearly 58% of
female users in Iran – that is, nearly twice as many – do not realize their Facebook
postings are compromised. On the other hand, compared with male users, Iranian
female users are more careful about what they put on their Facebook pages, either in
their friends list, their profiles or in their comments.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
I S IA I S IA
YES NO
Participant Responses
Q9: Do you know Facebook can share your information with third
parties?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 39
Q11: Did you ever add people that you do not know to your friendslist?
Figure 3.2: Results of Q11
In Figure 3.2, it can be seen that 40% of the Iranians living in Iran said ―yes‖ to this
question. But Table 3.6 on page 37 shows that gender differences for homebound
Iranians are substantial, with half of males (50%) versus a third of females (33%)
responding in the affirmative. For Iranians living abroad, the percentages of ―yes‖
responses for both males and females are smaller than for Iranians living in Iran, but
gender differences are negligible (19% of males and 22% of females responded
affirmatively). ―Yes‖ responses by Swiss users were 25% for males and 5% for
female, but the actual numbers of responders who said they added unknowns to their
friends lists – ie, three males and one female – was too small to validate the high
gender difference.
One reason for the high percentage of males living in Iran who added strangers to
their Friends list may be their desire to increase their connections so that they are not
isolated in their country.
What is central for this thesis is to see how important Facebook privacy is for the
service‘s users. Responses to Q8, presented in Table 3.7 , shows that only one male –
living in Switzerland – felt privacy was not important, compared to one female who
was living in Iran. So we can say the Facebook privacy problem, which is the main
subject of this thesis, is also of great importance to the people surveyed.
Importance of Facebook’s respect for privacy
Male Female
Yes NO Yes No
I S IA I S IA I S IA I S IA
12 14 17 0 1 0 17 21 18 1 0 0
Table 3.7: Importance of Facebook’s respect for privacy
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
I S IA I S IA
YES NO
Participant Responses
Q11:Did you ever add people that you do not know to your
freindslist?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
40 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
Q13: Do you have any limitation for writing on Facebook?
Figure 3.3: Results of Q13 shows that most of them have some limitation for writing on Facebook.
We can see in Figure 3.3 that most of them have some limitation for writing on
Facebook. Figure 3.4 looks at gender differences:
Figure 3.4: Results of Q13 (*Considered by gender).
To summarize, around 80% of all Facebook users, with one exception, limit what they
write. The exception is the category of Iranian males living abroad, with only about
half of this group feeling they have to censure what they write. The differences may
be explained by the fact that Europeans in general are more aware of their privacy
vulnerability, which is slight, and Iranian women in general are more careful in all
cases about what they post on their Facebook pages. In contrast to their sisters,
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
I S IA I S IA
YES NO
Participant Responses
Q13:Do you have any limitation for writing on Facebook?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
yes No
Participant Responses
Q13:Do you have any limitation for writing on Facebook?
Male
Female
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 41
Iranian males living outside of their country feel more freedom to say what they want
than they do at home.
In conclusion, it seems that users do not feel secure in Facebook, even those who
most need to use it. We should look at response of Q14 for a better analysis.
Q14: If yes in which part?
Figure 3.5: Results of Q14 shows that that the most important reason for limiting what they write on
Facebook for Iranians living either at home or abroad is Political.
The chart Figure 3.5 and Table 3.8 indicates that the most important reason for
limiting what they write on Facebook for Iranians living either at home or abroad is
Political. In the first position is category (IA) with 58%; in the second position is (I)
with 44%.
The next most important reason for these Iranian respondents limiting what they write
on Facebook is Family.
For non-Iranian residents of Switzerland, the (S) category, consideration of Family is
the most important reason for limiting what they write on Facebook. (S) category
responders put Other as their next most important reason. In explaining this choice,
some put Privacy as their reason; others came up with a reason like ―not to share all things to save mental energy”.
Then we see that, even for about 20% of Swiss responders, considerations of Politics
is an important reason for limiting what they write on Facebook. Despite the fact that
they live abroad, we see this even more in Iranians living in open societies (IA). One
explanation for this could be that they do not want trouble when they return to Iran.
And as the age range that we emphasized for our research is more or less between 16-
35 years, Iranians in category (IA) would likely have more contact with Iran than
older persons in this category.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Political Cultural Family Other
Participant Responses
Q14: If yes in which part?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
42 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
Q14: If yes in which part?
Political Cultural Family Other
I 44.44% 16.67% 27.78% 11.11%
IA 58.33% 12.50% 25.00% 4.17%
S 23.08% 11.54% 34.62% 30.77%
Table 3.8: Overview on Q14 based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA)
Q15: In terms of “Data privacy”, how safe do you think is your information in Facebook?
Figure 3.6: Results of Q15 shows that the Swiss are those most likely to believe that, in terms of data
privacy in Facebook, their information is not safe, up to level of ―Not at all‖, with 35%.
We can see in Figure 3.6 that the Swiss are those most likely to believe that, in terms
of data privacy in Facebook, their information is not safe, up to level of ―Not at all‖,
with 35%. Further, about a third of Swiss responders think their information is only
―Moderately‖ safe and slightly fewer believe their Facebook information is ―Slightly‖
safe.
Going back to questions Q9 and Q11, we notice that the (S) category is in first
position and the (IA) category is in second position regarding their knowledge that
Facebook shares their information with third parties. The Figure 3.6 confirms the
conclusion that the Swiss believe their data are not safe on Facebook. It could also be
the reason why they include the fewest Facebook users who ―Friend‖ people they do
not know.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Compeletly Very Moderatly Slightly Not at all
Participant Responses
Q15: In term of Data privacy, how safe do you think is your
information in Facebook?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 43
An interesting point here is that of responders in category (I), 18% think that their
data is completely safe; another 18% believe it is very safe, and 36% think that it is
moderately safe on Facebook. Compared with those in the two other categories,
Iranians at home (I) feel more confident that their postings are safe on Facebook.
Given the facts discussed in Chapter 2, one must conclude that this means that they
have not enough information about how Facebook works.
The responses of users in category (I) to the question of whether they know that
Facebook can share their information with third parties – Q9 – also suggests a lack of
information that Facebook share users information with third parties.
Q16: Did you ever have a bad experience on Facebook?
Figure 3.7: Results of Q16 shows in the total (I) category, 32%, reported that they had a bad
experience, which is the highest percentage of "Yes" responses.
All Swiss males in the study (100%) reported that they have never had a bad
experience on Facebook, whereas about one in five Swiss females (21%) said they
did. Somewhat fewer Iranian females living abroad said they had a bad experience
(17%). The group with highest percentage answering ―yes‖ to this question consisted
of females living in Iran (42%). Half that number of males living in Iran had a bad
experience (21%). This perhaps explains why females in general and females in Iran
in particular have been more cautious in their use of Facebook than have males.
Considering Figure 3.7 in the total (I) category, 32% reported that they had a bad
experience, which is the highest percentage of ―Yes‖ responses.
By seeing the results of Q17, we can see what sort of bad experiences Facebook users
have had.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
I S IA I S IA
YES NO
Participant Responses
Q16:Did you ever have bad experience on Facebook?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
44 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
Q17: If yes, in which part?
Figure 3.8: Results of Q17 shows that highest percentages of those having bad experiences were for
category (I), Iranians living at home, and the bulk of these bad experiences is in the Emotional area,
with 57%. In second position for this user category is Security, with 43%. In fact, Security is one of
the main problems for users in categories (IA) and (S) as well.
Emotional Security Careers Honor Other
I 57.14% 42.86% 0% 0% 0%
IA 0% 50% 0% 0% 50%
S 0% 50% 0% 25% 25%
Table 3.9: Overview on Q17 based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA)
Based on Figure 3.8 and Table 3.9, we see that highest percentages of those having
bad experiences were for category (I), Iranians living at home, and the bulk of these
bad experiences is in the Emotional area, with 57%. In second position for this user
category is Security, with 43%. In fact, Security is one of the main problems for users
in categories (IA) and (S) as well. Both had the same percentage of 50%, which is
comparable to that for Iranians in the (I) category.
The ―Other‖ Explanations given by those in the (IA) category included: ―Sharing my
slightest activities with my friends,‖ ―Some of my friends were arrested by
government‖. For those in the (S) category, problems of Security and Honor counted
the most, with Security a problem for 50% of them and Honor and Other for 25%
each. The ―Other‖ explanation included problems such as ―hacked account‖.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Emotional Security Careers Honor Other
Participant Responses
Q17: If yes in which part?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 45
Of interest is the fact that no Facebook user had a Career problem from using the
social network service, and Honor was not a problem for Iranians at home or abroad,
even for female users for whom potential violations of honor might be considered a
major disincentive for using a service where privacy is not guaranteed.
Figure 3.9: Results of Q.17 (*Considered by gender) shows that the security problem for females, with
62%, is far greater than for males, with about 17%.
Emotional Security Careers Honor Other
Male 33.33% 16.67% 0% 0% 50%
Female 15.38% 61.54% 0% 7.69% 15.38%
Table 3.10: Overview on Q17 considered by gender
In Figure 3.9, and then in Table 3.10 when we included all females in one category
and all males in another, we notice an interesting point: the security problem for
females, with 62%, is far greater than for males, with about 17%. We can say in
general that most of the bad experiences in Facebook for females is related to Security
problems.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Emotional Security Careers Honor Other
Participant Responses
Q17: If yes in which part?
Male
Female
46 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
Q18: Did you ever quit Facebook?
Figure 3.10: Results of Q18 shows more or less in all three categories (I), (S), (IA) –a minority of users
have quit Facebook at least once.
In Figure 3.10, we see that – more or less in all three categories (I), (S), (IA) – a
minority of users have quit Facebook at least once.
Our Table 3.6 on page 37 shows that, of those who quit Facebook, males in Iran
predominate (70%), followed by Iranian females living abroad (56%), then by Iranian
males living abroad (44%), Swiss males (42%), females living in Iran (42%), and –
the lowest number – Swiss females (26%).
By analyzing the responses to Q19, we can begin to understand the reasons.
Q19: If yes, why?
We gathered the reasons for quitting Facebook, as described below. Q19 was one of
the survey‘s open questions, which means that responders could answer or not answer
it, and they could explain their responses.
Here are the reasons for quitting Facebook given by female Swiss users (S):
1- ―I thought it was useless, because I don't care about what people post about their
life and I don't like to post something about my life. But I realize that Facebook is not
just that, there is other more or less interesting information.‖
2- ―I had to work hard and I spent too many time on Facebook.‖
3- political reason.
4- ―To enter Israel, they can ask you to open your FB so I closed my account to cross
the border. I am always thinking to quit but I find some advantage (keeping in touch
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
I S IA I S IA
YES NO
Participant Responses
Q18:Did you ever quit Facebook?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 47
to far-a-way people, organizing events, having regular news from different pages and
newspapers...) ‖
Here are the reasons given by male Swiss users (S):
1- ―jealous girlfriend‖
2- ―passing too much time on Facebook‖
3- ―did not interest me anymore.‖
4- ―I was getting addicted to it.‖
Here are the reasons given by female Iranians living abroad (IA):
1- (4 times) time consuming and addicted,
2- Safety issue while traveling to Iran, Security problem, or b/c of political problem in
Iran while traveling back home
3- ―I did not like this communication it term of data privacy.‖
Here are the reasons given by male Iranians living abroad (IA):
1- (3 times) didn‘t like to waste time on it.
2 -―Its like cigarette‖.
3- ―personal reason‖.
4- ―I was not using it as much.‖
The reasons given by females living in Iran (I):
1- not usable,
2- ―tired of Facebook‖
3- ―spent too much time and decided to quite but lasted only a day or two!!.‖
The reasons given by males living in Iran (I):
1- ―because sometimes I have so much work to do and not enough time to sign in
Facebook‖
2- ―for short time at my exam‖
3- ―not waiting people to see my every move.‖
The most common reason in all of the categories was ―investing too much time on
Facebook‖.
One interesting result is that, for female Iranians living abroad (IA), the most common
reasons they gave for dropping the service, beside time consumption, were data
privacy, security, and the ―political issue‖ while visiting their country. Again, Honor
was not an issue for them.
48 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
Q20: Did you ever sign up on Facebook with any unreal profile information?
Figure 3.11: Results of Q20 shows the largest percentage of users who said they provided false
information on their profiles is from Swiss females (32%).
We can see in Figure 3.11 that most of users provide their real profiles on Facebook.
The largest percentage of users who said they provided false information on their
profiles is from Swiss females (32%). For the others, between 10 and 19 percent said
they had provided unreal information. One explanation for the low incidence of false
profiles is that a major use and benefit of this social network is to easily find family
members, old friends and others that users already know. As in Q.11, we see that most
study participants do not add people they do not know to their friends list.
By going into detail we see that the (S) category, with 26%, has the highest
percentage of users to enter unreal information on their profiles. As we have seen in
the responses to Q11, most of these users know that Facebook shares their
information with third parties. These users are also less likely than the others to add
people they do not know to their Friends list.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
I S IA I S IA
YES NO
Participant Responses
Q20:Did you ever sign up on Facebook with any unreal profile
information?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 49
Q21: Do you know that even if you don't provide personal details of yourself on
Facebook, other Facebook users can approximately figure out who you are
(based on Friends, their posts and tags about you, your location and IP address
of your connection)?
Figure 3.12: Results of Q21
In the gender breakdown of Q.21 responses, in Table 3.6 (on page 37), we see that
Swiss males (75%) and females (84%) are more aware than the other responders
about the risks of sharing data and also about the possibility of Facebook finding
them, even with false Facebook profiles. Females living in Iran (42%) know less than
other Iranians, consistent with preceding responses. This is not strictly a question of
gender, however, because 61% of Iranian females living abroad are more aware than
are Iranian males living abroad (50%) of the risk that their identity will be discovered
by Facebook despite their attempts to conceal it. Again, the explanation for the higher
awareness of Iranians living abroad could be their easier access to information
concerning Facebook‘s privacy policies. Facebook is ―filtered‖ in Iran, limiting
information about the social network.
What we see during our discussion concerning Facebook‘s privacy policy timeline is
that a gap of privacy now exists and it is known which information will be gathered
by Facebook – information that can be seen by third parties. As the range of people
for whom we have collected our results are between ranges of 16-35 years old, and
most are students or they have high level of education, we can conclude that this gap
of knowledge is probably worse than what we see in Figure 3.12.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
I S IA I S IA
YES NO
Participant Responses
Q21:Do you know that even if you don't provide personal details of
yourself on Facebook, other Facebook users can approximately
figure out who you are?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
50 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
Q22: If yes what is your reaction?
Figure 3.13: Results of Q22 shows despite its privacy limitations, most of them will not quit Facebook
permanently because of its other advantages.
Q22: If yes what is your reaction?
Quit
Does not
matter
Important but still
use Other
I 1=10% 4=40% 5=50% 0%
IA 0% 6=46.15% 7=53.85% 0%
S 0% 4=16% 21=84% 0%
Table 3.11: Overview on Q22 based on our three categories (I), (S), (IA)
Even though they know that anyone can find out who they are when they try to
remain anonymous on Facebook, and even though they think this is an important fact,
84% of Swiss users (S) said they will use the service, as we can see from Figure 3.13
and Table 3.11. In other words, despite its privacy limitations, they will not quit
Facebook permanently because of its other advantages, such as being in
communication with their friends, organizing their activities with other Facebook
users, or simply finding out what is going on in the world from news reports or other
media. Interestingly, at least half of the Iranian users, both (I) and (IA), seem more
concerned about maintaining this communication than they are about any penalties
they might incur for violating government social network rules.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Quit Facebook Does not matter important but still use Other
Participant Responses
Q22: If yes what is your reaction?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 51
Q23: Did you ever change the privacy setting section in Facebook?
Figure 3.14: Results of Q23 shows that that both (S), at 97%, and (IA), at 94%, were categories with
very small differences in changing their privacy section.
Most responders said they had changed their Facebook privacy settings at one time or
another, with the fewest (75%) being females living in Iran, and the highest (100%)
being all females living outside of Iran, whether Swiss or Iranian. Males fell in
between.
Without considering gender, we can see in Figure 3.14 that both (S), at 97%, and
(IA), at 94%, were categories with very small differences in changing their privacy
section. Category (I) category is the lowest at 77%.
This result shows the general importance of privacy for Facebook users, and it
suggests a somewhat higher understanding of the function of Facebook‘s privacy
settings outside of Iran.
Of the three categories of respondents, Iranians in Iran are the most convinced that
social networks like Facebook respect human rights and privacy, either completely,
very much, or moderately. We can see in Figure 3.15 that most of the Iranians who
live in Iran, category (I), think that this kind of social network at least ―moderately‖
respects human rights and privacy. Only 23% of Swiss respondents (S) and 29% of
Iranians living abroad (IA) believe this, perhaps because of the negative publicity
surrounding Facebook‘s privacy policies in Europe that Iranians at home do not see.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
I S IA I S IA
YES NO
Participant Responses
Q23:Did you ever change the privacy setting section in Facebook?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
52 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
Q24: How much do you think this kind of social network respects human rights
and privacy?
Figure 3.15: Results of Q24 shows that most of the Iranians who live in Iran, category (I), think that
this kind of social network at least ―moderately‖ respects human rights and privacy.
Q25: Did you ever read the Facebook Privacy Policy?
Figure 3.16: Results of Q25 shows less than 30% of study responders had ever read it – with the major
exception that 50% of females in Iran had done so.
Considering the complexity of the Facebook Privacy Policy (see preceding Section 2),
it should not be surprising that fewer than 30% of study responders had ever read it –
0%
15%
30%
45%
60%
Compeletly Very Moderatly Slightly Not at all
Participant Responses
Q24: How much do you think this kind of social network respects
human rights and privacy?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
I S IA I S IA
YES NO
Participant Responses
Q25:Did you ever read the Facebook Privacy Policy?
I: Living in Iran
S: Living in Switzerland
IA: Iranian who live Abroad
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 53
with the major exception that 50% of females in Iran had done so. For those living
outside of Iran, perhaps because of their lack of concern that their identities and
postings on Facebook can be accessed by third parties, only 25% of Swiss males, 21%
of Swiss females and 28% of female Iranians living abroad had ever bothered to read
the Facebook Privacy Policy. This is comparable to males living in Iran (30%), but
considerably higher than Iranian males living abroad (19%). Based on Figure 3.16,
Iranians in Iran (I) have read the Facebook privacy policy more than those in the other
two categories, (S) and (IA). But only a minority in all three categories has taken the
trouble to read it.
Arguably, the Facebook Privacy Policy, which is accessible on the social network‘s
Internet site, may be the best or only method for females in Iran to understand the
likelihood that the government will be able to identify them and read everything they
post on Facebook. Their higher concern over discovery by third parties, as illustrated
by their responses to preceding questions, explains why at least half of female users in
Iran have taken advantage of this information access.
Another possible reason for the low readership is that e-documents are so very
important today compared to the past that Facebook users rush to use the service
without taking the time to understand and use the privacy controls. They fail to see
that, if there are negative consequences to this lack of due diligence, the company and
its staff can simply say that they had informed you of their policy and it is your fault
if you did not take the trouble to find out what it is.
Q26: If you agree that better privacy needs to be given throughout the Internet,
what is your suggestion to do for social networks such as Facebook? (Explain)
Here are some of the comments received from the study respondents:
The comments given by female Swiss users (S):
1- ―Prohibit people to post picture/video showing some people they don't know (=
have as friend on Facebook), or people who don't want to be identified on the
picture/video. Actually this is not controlled so people who didn't want it can find
themselves on Google on other people picture.‖
2- ―There are alternative programs, such as Telegram instead of What's app, or Rise
Up for emails, that care much more about their users‘ privacy. We should use those
programs more. It would be good to have the company sensitized about the privacy
issue on Internet for children and adults, so that everybody knows what they are doing
on Internet. We should be careful not to be our own spy, creating our own ‗big
brother‘...‖
3- ―not share with third part the private information; don't track the movement
(linking friends, location, tastes...)‖
4- ―Non-profit website, such as ‗bewelcome.com‘ for example.‖
5- ―multi + private servers... but still not enough! I don't believe in governmental laws
about Internet privacy, I think people should take control on the Internet.‖
6- ―As a big company, Facebook will never take care about that...‖
The comments given by male Swiss users (S):
54 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
1- ―I suggest that people who do not have a friend in common with you, cannot add
you to their friendslist.‖
2- ―Stop trying to take the most money possible out of the customers, stop selling our
private data to commercials and politics––>those big groups like Google or FB are
acquiring more and more power by the information they are collecting and they are
pushed by states that want to have ‗rights‘ on the rights of users to control the free-
space that should be internet. It's a state systemic logic to want to control their citizens
(either totalitarian regimes like Iran or ―democracies‖ like US or UE). They shouldn't
be neither in a liberal logic of profit being in the ‗bourse‘ (wall street)––> that push
them to act hand in hand with all the praetors of liberties in fear of economic
consequences... ‖ [This text is a beginning of a longer response to the question.]
3- ―Social networks shouldn't work as a company with the goal of profits but as a
non-profit organization. Money has rotted the idea and has perverted the concept.‖
4- ―You don't post any private information on social networks. What is on Facebook
is public. It is the same as if I speak out loud in a bar or in the street. Maybe no one
will care, but they can at least hear me.‖
5- ―Personal information should be kept private. That is, no third parties should have
access to it. Social networks should only collect data that I explicitly agreed to be
collected.‖
6- ―Establish a network of Internet firms that verifies that social networks such as
Facebook are complying with privacy and people‘s data of their users and control the
drafting of conditions made by social networks. Moreover, it would be that users
should note a few times a year dangers that can occur and the consequences related to
publications, sharing photos, etc.‖
The comments given by female Iranians living abroad (IA):
1- ―Allow users to decide on what can be shared, and to whom it can be shared.
Disable the "auto-recognition" ability of Facebook. Disable third party data sharing.‖
2- ―Clear and short terms if reference - Not sharing any personal info with third party
- More and options for privacy setting control‖
3- ―If they really want to respect users privacy they should explain the policies in
brief and simple [terms], but I assume they are representing it in a complicated way
and, in case of any enquiries, they can easily get out of it.‖
The comments given by male Iranians living abroad (IA):
1- ―…fully manual and controllable privacy settings, which by default would limit
automatic postings and data sharing to its minimum.‖
2- ―Just logout‖
3- ―It should allow people to delete their data forever from even Facebook history.‖
4- ―I think they shouldn't share our information with third parties. Furthermore they
shouldn't track our IP address or gather our private information.‖
5- ―If privacy is the first priority for someone, it is better to quit Facebook or any
other social network.‖
Chapter 3. Facebook Survey 55
6- ―It is all about the business. Even if you ask they don't care. Don't bother yourself.‖
7- ―The most important one is to stop sharing data with a third party.‖
The comments given by female living in Iran users (I):
(They had not any suggestion.)
The comments given by male living in Iran users (I):
1- ―I believe they should respect our privacy as much as possible; for example, not
sharing our information with third parties without our permission. On the other hand,
I understand that they need our information in order to boost their profits as well as
being prosperous. So I opine the suggestions would be limited and individuals who
use such social networks should be aware about the repercussions before registering.‖
3.5 Analysis and Summary of Study Results
The most important findings of this study are that most Facebook users between the
ages of 16 and 35 (ie, 87% of those surveyed):
know that Facebook can share your information with third parties. Those
living in open societies, such as Switzerland and Canada, are most informed
about this.
have never added people they did not know to their friendslist. Again, those
living in open societies were most conscientious about this.
limit what they write on Facebook, with more than 40% of the total number of
respondents – including Iranians, no matter where they live – doing so for
Political reasons.
think their information is either completely, very, or moderately safe on
Facebook. Non-Iranian respondents living in Switzerland (largely Swiss
citizens) are less persuaded than others.
never had a bad experience on Facebook. Of the minority who did, however,
most were Iranians who had Emotional, Security or ―Other‖ bad experiences
on the social network service. Most of the bad experiences in Facebook for
female respondents were related to Security problems.
never quit Facebook. Of the minority who did quit, most were Iranians living
either at home or in open societies. The most common reason given for
quitting was ―investing too much time on Facebook.‖ The problem of
―Honor‖ was not an issue.
never signed up on Facebook with unreal profile information, by very large
majorities. Still, about a quarter of non-Iranians living Switzerland did post
false profiles.
know that providing false – or no – personal profile details will not prevent
other Facebook users from learning who they are. This includes a majority of
Iranians living in open societies but slightly less than a majority of Iranians
living at home. Despite their knowledge of their privacy vulnerability, a
majority of users say it either doesn‘t matter to them or, even though they
know it is important, they will still use the service. This latter group includes
non-Iranians, mostly Swiss, living in Switzerland.
56 Chapter 3. Facebook Survey
Changed their Facebook privacy settings at one time or another, with the
fewest being females living in Iran (75%) and the highest (100%) being
females living outside of Iran, whatever their nationality. Males fell in
between.
Believe this kind of social network at least moderately respects human rights
and privacy. Most of the other respondents think it only slightly respects
human rights and privacy, or not at all.
Never read the Facebook Privacy Policy, although 50% of females in Iran said
they had read it. For those living outside of Iran, fewer than 30% had read
Facebook‘s Privacy Policy.
57
Chapter 4
4 Study Limitations
In Section 2.1, we relied extensively on the work of Matt McKeon. However, his
published Internet article [6] and also Kurt Opsahl‘s analyses [7] did not include data
from the year 2008, so we have concluded that Facebook made no important private
policy changes that year.
In Section 2.2, we collected information from different sites, so the information was
not well organized as it had been in Mr. McKeon‘s study. We could not find one
exact comparison or chart for the years from 2011 to 2015. As we did in Section 2.1,
we tried to explain the changes in each year and then compare the changes.
In Section 3, we struggled with the problem of categorizing the participants in the
study, who were either Iranians, which we designated by the symbol (I), or were not.
However, a two-division categorization of participants would not include the answers
of Iranians who live abroad, despite the fact that a huge number of Iranian are living
abroad. We felt that including them for analysis and seeing the differences would be
interesting. We designated this category by the symbol (IA).
For the non-Iranian in our study, most lived in Switzerland, where the study was
conducted. We have identified them by the symbol (S). We cannot assume that all
residents of Switzerland are Swiss citizens, or that their thinking is necessarily
influenced by Swiss law, because about a quarter of those who live in Switzerland are
foreigners. For Iranians who live abroad, for example, Facebook is not ―filtered,‖ as it
is in Iran, but they are still influenced by Iranian law, especially those who expect to
return to their country. The influence may not be direct, but as long as they have an
Iranian passport, the Iranian government expects them to comply with Iranian law
pertaining to Facebook.
The statistical validity of discerning trends in subsets is problematical because the
respondents in some cases are too few for valid comparisons. For example the data for
Question 9 (see page 38) show that 70% of male Facebook users in Iran versus only
42% of female users in that country are aware that Facebook can share their
information with third parties. But the numerical difference between the two groups is
just two individuals, suggesting that if both had changed their response there would
be no difference at all.
59
Chapter 5
5 Conclusions and future work
5.1 Conclusions
These days we cannot live without the Internet. A consequence of this fact is that all
of our information may now be put online, without our permission, for everyone to
see – whether our friends, or their friends, or their friends of friends, or anyone else.
This is especially true of social networks, such as Facebook, where privacy policies
encourage widespread distribution of users‘ information, largely for commercial
purposes. Besides advertisers and others trying to sell us something (including ideas),
our private postings and information can be readily obtained by others – such as
government agencies, or thieves – whose purposes may be antithetic to ours.
In this thesis we considered Facebook as one important social platform that gathers
very large amounts of information from, and about, its users. We were interested in
the knowledge and understanding of the social network‘s privacy policies by
Facebook users in both ―open‖ and ―closed‖ societies, and its actual or potential
consequences to these users. We also drew on published literature concerning the
evolution of those policies from 2005 to 2015.
In our study of 101 respondents, we sought to find the main common aspects between
three categories of users – 1) those living in ―open‖ societies (Switzerland and
Canada), 2) those living in a ―closed‖ society (Iran), and 3) citizens of the ―closed‖
society temporarily living in an ―open‖ society. We also wanted to learn whether lack
of Facebook privacy was perceived as more of a problem in the ―closed‖ society than
in the ―open‖ society – with attention to whether the respondent was a male or female.
5.2 Answers to Study Questions
1. How and why has Facebook changed its privacy policies over the past decade?
We found that, compared to the year 2005, it is today far easier for other Facebook
users, and even third parties, including commercial entities and the government, to
gather information about members‘ habits, opinions, and lives – starting with their
60 Chapter 5. Conclusions and future work
identity, even if they try to remain anonymous. Essentially, anything that a user posts
on his/her Facebook site is now, and perhaps will be forever, in the public domain.
The reason is straightforward, although not specifically acknowledged by Facebook in
its public pronouncements. At least since 2010, Facebook's business model has been
to sell, or make available to third parties for financial remuneration, the private
information of its (non-paying) "users" which its (paying) "customers" want for
commercial or private purposes, such as advertising, product or other user
preferences, statistics, etc.
2. How and why might Facebook choose to continue or modify its privacy settings in
the future?
Considering its business model, there is no good reason for assuming that Facebook
will willingly improve its privacy policies, unless a) it is required to by government
regulation, or b) discontent over privacy issues starts eroding its user numbers. There
are some signs that government agencies, such as the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission, have taken the first steps to force Facebook to give users the ability to
keep their data private. In 2011, Facebook agreed to settle with the FTC to continue
allowing users to choose whether his/her monthly activities, such as becoming friends
with another user, would be private or generally available. However, Facebook has
since strongly argued that the settlement nevertheless allows ―privacy through
obscurity,‖ which should be sufficient protection. Deleting posts on your own
Timeline does not control how or whether others delete your Timeline posts,
according to one commentator [11].
As for user discontent, there is no sign (beyond complaints) that Facebook is losing
many of its users. In fact, since 2012, when the active user base hit one billion, it has
grown to 1.59 billion at the end of 2015[3]. However, in the early days of Facebook,
before it became a necessary fixture in the lives of billions (and before user data
became the company‘s cash cow), the company was cognizant of complaints about
privacy and instituted its early privacy policies, which did for a time encourage the
company to protect user privacy. Those days are over, unless competition from other
social networks makes Facebook listen to users‘ privacy complaints again.
3. What are the general needs of Facebook users regarding privacy?
Our study addressed this with a series of 26 survey questions, the answers to which
were analyzed discussed in Section 3.4. Respondents in both ―open‖ and ―closed‖
societies say they need to be able to choose the recipients of their personal
information, but they do not believe Facebook will give them this option.
4. How are these different for users in open versus closed societies?
Though the majority says they know that Facebook can share their information with
third parties, this does not appear to be of great concern to most users, even those
living in a closed society like Iran. Even there, where the results of privacy incursions
by the government can be quite serious, users say they will not quit Facebook,
because it is useful or even essential to them. With the exception of female Facebook
users in Iran, most respondents have never had a ―bad experience‖ on Facebook. (For
those women who did, the most common issue was ―security.‖)
5. Do users find Facebook controls easy to use, and do they use them?
Chapter 5. Conclusions and future work 61
With the exception, again, of female users in Iran, most of the respondents in our
study have never read Facebook's published privacy policy. Although the literature on
Facebook's privacy policies suggests that privacy controls are complex and difficult to
use, the great majority of the respondents in our study said they have changed their
Facebook privacy settings at one time or another anyway.
6. How do Facebook users in these different societies modify their online behavior to
meet their particular privacy needs?
Most of our respondents think their information is at least moderately safe on
Facebook. Consequently, the great majority of those in Switzerland, Canada and Iran
have never signed up with false profile information on Facebook. But rather than
completely relying on the service's privacy settings to protect them, the majority are
careful in whom they "friend" and what they post, with around 80% of all Facebook
users, with one exception, limiting what they write on the social network. The
exception, with about 70% limiting their Facebook writings, is the category of
Iranians living abroad. Of those, over half (58%) say the reason is ―political‖,
compared to 44% of Iranians living at home and about 20% of non-Iranians (mostly
Swiss) living in Switzerland.
5.3 Future Work
An extension of the current study with many more participants would achieve greater
statistical validity. In such a study, it would be beneficial to equalize the number of
respondents in each of the three main categories (I, S and IA), and also the number of
male and female respondents. Also, more respondents, and additional questions, could
better illuminate the reasons some users have quit Facebook. Also, with more
respondents, expressed opinions about Facebook could be collated to give a statistical
rather than anecdotal sense of what users think of the service. In our current study,
non-users and older users were too few to include in the results. A larger study should
include them.
Participants made many suggestions for improving their Facebook privacy
experience, although there was wide skepticism that the company would consider
their ideas, a feeling which seems to be universal among Facebook users. A common
suggestion was that Facebook must allow users more control in their privacy settings,
with clear instructions and ease of use. This had not been a problem a decade ago, but
several important changes the company made since 2010 have made it almost
impossible for users to achieve complete privacy in their Facebook postings.
Would applying the highest level of cryptography for data on this kind of platform be
a viable solution? This thesis does not explore this idea although it is a good subject
for a follow-up study. Another idea worth exploring is creating a strong international
law applied to the Internet world, one which would protect users‘ privacy, discourage
abuses, and still allow companies like Facebook to make a profit – to stay in business
and grow – while respecting human rights.
63
6 Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire
1- What is your gender?
Male
Female 2- How old are you?
>=15
16-25
26-35
36-50
<=51 3- What is your level of education?
Under high-school degree
High-school degree
Associate degree
Bachelor‘s degree
Master‘s degree
PHD or higher degree
4- What is your occupation?
Employed
Student
Retired/Non-employed 5- Do you use Facebook?
Yes
No 6- If not, Why?
Do not like it
Do not need it
Privacy aspect
Other
7- Which category are you in?
64 Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire
Living in Iran (I)
Iranian who lives abroad (IA)
Living in Switzerland [non-Iranian] (S)
8- Is it important for you that Facebook respect your privacy?
Yes
No 9- Do you know Facebook can share your information with third parties?
Yes
No 10- How many hours per day do you spend on Facebook?
Less than 5 min
5-10 min
11-20 min
21-30 min
31-60 min
More than 1 hour 11- Did you ever add people that you do not know to your friendslist?
Yes
No 12- If yes, how many approximately?
Less or equal to 6
More than 6 13- Do you have any limitation for writing on Facebook?
Yes
No 14- If yes in which part?
Family
Cultural
Political
Other
15- In terms of “Data privacy”, how safe do you think is your information in Facebook?
Completely Safe
Very Safe
Moderately safe
Slightly Safe
Not at all safe
Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire 65
16-Did you ever have a bad experience on Facebook?
Yes
No 17- If yes, in which part?
Emotional
Honor
Security
Careers
Others 18- Did you ever quit Facebook?
Yes
No 19- If yes, Why? (Explain)
20- Did you ever sign up on Facebook with any unreal profile information?
Yes
No 21- Do you know that even if you don’t provide personal details of yourself on Facebook,
other Facebook users can approximately figure out who you are (based on Friends, their
posts and tags about you, your location and IP address of your connection)?
Yes
No
22- If yes what is your reaction?
Quit Facebook
Does not matter for me
It is important for me but still I need to use Facebook
Other (Explain)
23- Did you ever change the privacy setting section in Facebook?
Yes
No
24- How much do you think this kind of social network respects human rights
and privacy?
Completely respects
Very much respects
Moderately respects
Slightly respects
Not at all respects
66 Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire
25- Did you ever read the Facebook Privacy Policy?
Yes
No
26- If you agree that better privacy needs to be given through the Internet, what
is your suggestion for improving social networks such as Facebook? (Explain)
67
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