Microsoft's Boyd Questions Future of Online Privacy
Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd said Sunday during her SXSW keynote that consumers have no idea what they are sharing online, nor do the businesses that build social networks.
AUSTIN, Texas - Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd presented a pretty bleak picture of how privacy and publicity is managed online Sunday in her SXSW Interactive keynote.
Targeting Chatroulette, Facebook, and Google Buzz as examples, Boyd says consumers have no idea what they are sharing online, and that the businesses that build social networks don't either.
Facebook in December, requiring each user to sign off on new privacy settings. When offered this choice, 35 percent of users chose to make their profiles private. Boyd pointed out that that means 65 percent made their updates public. After conducting scores of interviews, Boyd doubts those users even read the privacy statement; they just clicked through as we have been conditioned to do.
"I have yet to find a single person who actually knew what their settings were," Boyd said. "When they don't know what the value proposition is, they just click through."
And that can lead to problems. Google Buzz primarily because users didn't understand the service. By auto-picking user's friends on Buzz, users thought Google was sharing their information without their permission. Worse, users didn't understand how to opt out. "I kept meeting users that thought if they opted out, they would cancel their Gmail accounts," Boyd said.
To be fair, Boyd noted that many of these privacy problems are created by people's desire to gain publicity and get famous. She pointed to Miley Cyrus, who accumulated 2 million followers on Twitter and then deleted her account for privacy reasons. What did she do then?
"She made a rap about quitting Twitter because she wanted privacy, which she then put up on YouTube." Boyd said. "That is celebrity culture."
If Miley Cyrus, with her legion of handlers and advisors, can't effectively manage publicity and privacy, what chance does the average online consumer have? Or worse, a 15-year-old kid with a Facebook page? Not much.
"Chatroulette may be a fad, but the idea that privacy and publicity is going to get mashed up is not," Boyd said. "Neither privacy nor publicity is dead, but technology will make a mess of both."
This post originally appeared on AppScout.