Special Reading #3 - Contextual Gaps

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Title: Contextual Gaps: Privacy Issues on Facebook
Authors: Gordon Hull, Heather Richter Lipford, and Celine Latulipe
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Summary:
In this paper, the authors describe the changing face of privacy in online social networking services using Facebook as the example. At the start of the article they describe the changing social norms online through blogging and webcams, using examples such as Jennicam and Washingtonienne to illustrate the problems they have caused. The authors then map these same social issues to Facebook's applications and news feed. They talk about the silent sharing of data from Facebook to these applications, and how many people are completely unaware that the applications are actually sharing data at all. They then ask that the users be better informed of the applications' data mining by having a page display the information shared with pictures of their friends. Then the authors talk about the news feed, and how on the inception of the news feed service, a huge backlash ensued. They then talk about how users apply a social context to their actions online like they do in real life, and when a large change like the feed occurs, the sudden change changes the users' concepts of that context. They then mention that after a while when peoples' contexts adapted, the complaints died out. They then describe some slight changes that might improve Facebook's news feed.

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