Part of the sign-up process for most any social networking site is a privacy option: do you want the whole world to see your presence on this particular site, or just a handful of people that you select? This simple option illustrates a fascinating intersection between technology and social interaction.
The most basic action you can perform on a social network is getting a list of people. For computers, fulfilling a request for such a list is easy: ask the database for a list of n people, hand that list back to the web application to be processed and formatted, and send back some HTML to the user's browser. In many circumstances, this list is easily cached, making it a snap to serve millions of users per day. More pages served means more potential ads clicked, and that means more money.
Privacy mucks this happy scenario up. Ask for a list of users on a social network with privacy controls and you're kicking off a complex series of computations behind the scenes. The database can't just retrieve a simple list when privacy is in the mix. Instead, it has to jump around its tables of data figuring out who's allowed to see who. The web application now has to provide different decorations to denote the private users, so you need extra logic and some new icons. Everything just got twice as hard: harder for the machines, harder for the programmer, harder for the designer, and (before this was a common UI pattern) conceptually harder for the user.
It wouldn't be a stretch to say that most social networks are conceived of, designed, and developed by young men (see Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal, Twitter, &c.). Young men have nothing to gain from online privacy. If you're young and male, the online world is your oyster: you can build a reputation, find new relationships, and share your opinions in what's historically been a culture of your peers. The only reason to "go private" if you're young and male is if you're already hugely successful offline; movie stars and rappers have nothing to gain from being your virtual buddy once they've blown up, but they probably want to stay in touch with their friends.
Thankfully, the social web isn't comprised solely of young men. This makes online communities more diverse and engaging, and that diversity is essential for both the survival and monetization of those communities. That said, it's the people who aren't young men who usually want privacy: women afraid of being stalked, older users uninterested in expanding their social networks, or everyday misanthropic curmudgeons like my coworker Jeremy. Private users present a paradox for social networks: you can't serve with 'em, but you can't survive with 'em.
I've been thinking about this paradox for some time, as Peeramour - the site I've been conceiving of in my free time for over two years - is an experiment in online social openness. Peeramour doesn't have a conceptual place for private users, yet it requires a diverse demographic to succeed. My hope is that the potential social benefit of the site is enough of an incentive to draw those private users out of their shells, but it's a tricky business.
Sep 22, 2007
The Cost of Privacy in Social Web Applications
4 comments:
It isn't the uknown crazies stalking me that worries me. Its the crazies that I KNOW about that are scary.
It isn't a vague privacy thing by and large since at this point I think we have ALL accepted that there are trolls out there and by and large they stay digital. Things get much more complicated when you are dealing withe knowns.
Frankly since a recent incident I haven't felt comfortable blogging my new neighborhood discoveries, twittering my daily activities with any amount of geographic detail, or really saying anything beyond well I am sort of living in San Francisco for fear that this woman will come after me. And this incident has nothing to do with a random stalker but with real live peeple that I am aware of and nominally have access to my personal information regardless.
In fact I may get rid of my twitter account entirely because of it since I don't get any social utility out of it if I can't be transparent or share.
So in that sense the cost of privacy goes both ways. If I can't be frank then there is little use for me to continue a service. And that is a depressing thought.
There's a lot to play with here ... very interesting. There are also what the NYTimes called "gated social networks" that you have to be invited into by someone more important than you. Feels icky, but could lead to cool/interesting/bad outcomes.
I wonder if the invite dance could be changed up a bit... maybe you do something like... "magic tickets"... when you get invited you get 2 tickets. You can give one ticket away to invite someone; if you use your second ticket, you get locked out of your account until someone invites you back in. There's interesting game theory there -- as well as something that might encourage generosity... if there's something of high enough value, you want to give away you last invite because other people should get the chance to experience it. And maybe, after some time, all those selfish people who never gave away their last ticket get locked out and everyone is allowed in.
I dunno. It could be interesting. ;)
Very interesting post.
I'm a co-founder at PassPack. I'm also female and a bit of a privacy buff.
I think social networks are backing themselves into a dead end - too many of them flooding the market and they are loosing value.
I think the key to getting out of this bind is opening up the social grid. So I'll only have one master list of friends, that I can grant websites access to (in whole or in part).
And the key to making an open social grid less dangerous is innate privacy controls and data security.
Personally I might try more social apps if I knew I didn't have to badger all my friends again with invites. But I would also want to make sure that master list was very well protected, and under my complete control.
Just my two cents.
Cheers!
Tara
I think a big part of the problem is having web apps that try to be all places to all people, i.e. host lots of social communities with conflicting and contrasting privacy needs and expectations. In real phsyical spaces, we have strong expectations of privacy that we agree on by showing up which makes things much simpler and more unified: I don't have a privacy policy that follows me around, but my house and gym both do and I abide by and am protected by each in turn.
I didn't want to monoplozie your whole comment thread, so I wrote more about this idea here: http://www.urbanhonking.com/ideasfordozens/archives/2007/09/on_the_expectat.html
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