POSTMODERN REAR WINDOW: FACEBOOK Sevgi KESİM GÜVEN

POSTMODERN REAR WINDOW: FACEBOOK Sevgi KESİM GÜVEN, PhD. TURKEY
[email protected]
Çağlayan KOVANLIKAYA, Associate Professor Phd. Mimar Sinan Guzel Sanatlar University, TURKEY
[email protected] Sevgi KESİM GÜVEN was born in 1970, in İstanbul. She received her Ph.D and B.A degrees from Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Faculty of Arts And Sciences, Department of Sociology. She received her M.A degree from İstanbul University, Management Faculty, Department of Organizational Behaviour. Now she is working at Boğaziçi University as a specialist and lecturing in the fields of communication and public relations. Çağlayan KOVANLIKAYA was born in Luleburgaz in 1967. She graduated from Galatasaray High School. She received her BA degree in Sociology from Istanbul University in 1990. She earned her MA and PhD degrees from Department of General Sociology and Methology Department of Mimar Sinan University. She conducted research and published articles on Woman Studies, History of Turkish Sociology, Sociology of Culture. She is working as an Associate Professor at Sociology Department of Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts. Abstract Having been regarded as the most popular social facility of the internet world, Facebook has had a considerable number of users from all over the world and Turkey since it was first started. The website, having 70 million members all over the world as of March 2008, has a notable record level in Turkey. Turkey has been the first in the world in terms of the growth rate of users. There has been a lot of controversy on the effects of rapidly prevailing Facebook network. The primary concern on the site is that it bears a security risk since it facilitates the display of the user information and thus threatens the privacy of people. The matter of security first appears as the users expose a great number of information about themselves. Besides this, the website does not take the necessary precautions to provide security. Using Facebook, third parties can actively access final‐user information. Surprisingly, the website users, within the social sharing network, give this information voluntarily. They desire to display the imaginary friendship networks because they can not have these in real life situations. By living their friendships in an imaginary field, they make these friendships an object of this imaginary show. However, in a sense, the display of this show makes the individual part of this “display”. They take pleasure of both displaying themselves and monitoring what is displayed. The image of monitoring and pleasure reminds us of the relationship between monitoring and pleasure that we see in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous film “Rear Window”, however, monitoring is not focused on the “looks” anymore but on photos and correspondence. Facebook spectators are now looking forward to the photos and messages 481
of whom/what they monitor. The spectator has become a part of whom/what they monitor. Within this theoretical framework, the fundamental question of this research is as the following; Has Facebook been the “rear window” of individuals as well as being a social facility? The problem we attempted to conceptualize above is going to be explicated by the data of field study carried out with Facebook users in Turkey. For instance, because of the abundance of users in Turkey, this research is going to be carried out by Internet survey technique and the data obtained as a consequence of this research is going to lay the ground for the discussion of the points we tried to put forth within the framework of the mentioned basic matters. Keywords: Facebook, Internet, Privacy, Imaginary Field, Supervision, Pleasure. Postmodern Rear Window: Facebook 1. Introduction With the advancement in the internet technology, the number of the websites for social sharing has increased day by day. This conjectural environment has turned into an important social lab which includes the social “self” describing the post‐modern life, as well as the constructing and reconstructing experiments. In these social labs, people have always had the desire to make new experiments (Dreyfus, 2002). The above mentioned desire, has drastically multiplied new websites (like you tube, my space) for social sharing which has different features. It is for sure that among these websites, Facebook has been the one which excites its users most. While Facebook has different features from the previous ones before it, it also tries to show that it stands to form “real groups” within this conjectural area. These social sharing websites create an unlimited area and opportunity which their users cannot create in the real life otherwise. On the one hand, this unlimited space offers its users the opportunity to uncover their own fancy world and on the other hand, it gives the chance to be a part of the others’ worlds. This desire of ‘being a part’ has made the users of these social websites ‘watchers’ and the desire of ‘watching’ has also modified the modern version of the observation story. In the past, while the “big brother”1 meaning the disciplinarian feature of the power, was emphasized, now the “surveillance” has come down to the level of the “little brother” (Staples, 1997). The users are voluntarily taking parts in this custody game. Together with this, we have seen the voluntary disclosure more often in many social websites. At this point, Facebook has been one of the most significant tools for disclosure of the personal information. That voluntary disclosure has pushed the internet users described as the “little brother” to follow the disclosures of others as well. As the voluntary disclosure has changed definition of the privacy at the modern age, basically, the perception of the “privacy” concept at the users has come to a change. The users are becoming a part of this voluntary action for the sake of seeing more photos, written and visual materials in this 1
The concept of “big brother” takes place in the novel George Orwell called “1984”. In this novel, Orwell mentions a communal dystopia where the state’s supervision is over everything, any little marginality or individuality is forbidden, formal ideology fictionalizes all the history and the language as it wishes. In the novel, there is this big brother as a central power who watches people and put them under pressure and custody (Orwell, 2002).
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network. However, the reason for this has not been spoken out by the users since they enjoy both watching others and being watched. In parallel to the points stated above, taking the start from the Facebook example, the concept of privacy, the users’ perception of the privacy and the reasons behind the voluntary disclosure will be stated and the data on the density at the user database of Facebook will be analyzed. 2. Privacy Today, the concept of privacy is seen as an important part of the social life. However, privacy is a difficult concept to be defined and limited since it can vary depending on the people and societies. Besides, people’s voluntary disclosure has added another dimension to the discussion. That’s why the concept of privacy has gained many different meanings, which made it difficult to define the privacy concept and to set its limits. Among the definitions of privacy, the famous work of Westin called “Privacy and Freedom” has been shown as an important reference resource. Here, privacy is defined as the rights of people, groups and companies to decide on when, to what extent and how to share their personal information. In addition, it is also a sum of personal and moral values as well as a kind of freedom from societal pressures when the need arises. This freedom builds a private wall against the world and saves the personality. A free person is someone who saves some of his personal opinions for himself, without feeling it necessary to share everything with even his close and beloved friends, and who has a private life (Westin, 1967). Warren and Brandies define “privacy” as a person’s being left alone, his thoughts and emotions to be kept private and secret (as stated by Coleman, 2004). As for Parent, privacy is not having the right to reach the information about somebody unless it is documented. Here, Parent defines “personal information” as the realities about somebody which are not desired to be shared by most people at certain times in a society (as stated by Miller and Veckert, 2000). Regarding this definition, Miller and Veckert underline this question: Personal information, and thus privacy is completely related to what they prefer to disclose about themselves at certain times. In parallel to this, if everybody in a society prefers to open their personal information to the others, they still have privacy according to this definition (Miller&Veckert, 2000). Another definition of privacy by McCloskey: The right to reach the personal information of a person, which means, a person has the right to convey his personal information to the masses freely. In this situation, this person loses his privacy but according to McClosley’s definition since those people lay their personal information open willingly, there is no loss in the control of their privacy ( as stated by Miller&Veckert, 2000). Hyman Gross also agrees with Mc Closkey holding the opinion that any explanation made willingly and consciously does not include any loss in the privacy because this is rather an application of control than a loss of control ( as stated by Gavision, 1995). As for the deduction from these definitions, any explanation made consciously and willingly does not include a loss in the privacy since this is not a loss of control but an application of the control. However, there is also a conflict here which needs to be underlined. While a person has the control to or not to express any information about him/herself, other people can get this information from other sources which makes this person accessible. 483
Judith Wagner DeCew establishes the significance of the privacy at the protection of the space where both private and public life are put forward because privacy protects people’s lives from unnecessary interventions (as stated by Patton, 2000). All in all, privacy includes the right to be left alone, not to be reachable physically and personal life and information (Tapscott, 1998). Then, which parts of human life should personal privacy rights protect? As stated by Tapscott, personal privacy should at least include being left alone, the right to exclude others and not being supervised by others in unfair way. It should also include a person’s being able to keep his personal data private to some extent and the right to be protected by the state’s intervention (Tapscott, 1988). Those views about the privacy state also why it is that important. First of all, as stated by Gavison, the complete loss of the privacy includes the direct access to a person and observing a person constantly. In this case, there is no private opinion or space left. What one does and thinks would be known by others as well (Gavison, 1995). In parallel to these definitions, the violation of the privacy is composed of ; data gathering, storing and transferring this data to the computer; spreading the information about these people; watching, following people and taking their pictures; entering their private zone ( by force); eavesdropping, reading their letters and some other typical attacks. Those kinds of attacks have been done very often both in private and public spaces thanks to new network systems. The most recent example to this is Facebook which is the subject matter of this research. People and groups watching are ambiguous in the action of socialization at these websites where technology has a role of matchmaking. In other words, it is not clear who or which groups are dealing with the data collected or for what purposes they are made use of. Therefore, a person has lost their power of control willingly. As for Pekman, in the future the privacy will not only be a matter of morality but also a matter of technology. Technical application of the electronic networks has a drastic impact on the loss of the privacy of the people (Pekman 2005). In this respect, Facebook which has been described as the social sharing network is seen interesting and thus worth to examine for the aspects that its users voluntarily open up their personal information and even some other information related to their private fields, to sharing. 3. Facebook Facebook has been founded on February 4th, 2004 by Marc Zuckerberg who is a student at Harvard University for the aim of communication and information exchange among friends. Then it expanded to include the schools around Boston and became popular among the schools all around the U.S.A in the first year. The members could only register with the email addresses of their schools (edu, ac, uk, and so on). Later in time, some high schools and companies also joined in this network. On September 11th 2006, Facebook was opened up to all email addresses with some age restrictions (htpp://tr.wikipedi.org/wiki/Facebook). When compared to other systems, the crucial difference lies in the fact that the attendance is structured as a membership of university community. In this respect, the website has in fact brought its users around the networks used at university. Facebook has in fact become the new name of “the conjectural communication” between campuses in the world. The website has been shaped by profiles which are created by the answers given to the questions regarding the names, surnames, nicknames, date of birth, hobbies, home addresses, religious views, relationship status, sexual preference, political views and so on. In these profiles, the users have opened up their demographic data, hobbies and many 484
things to share with others. Thanks to these profiles, the communication with the so‐called “friends”2 is made. Once the user is accepted as a friend, this relationship is no longer bilateral, which means that whose list you are in, you automatically take the others in the list to your own list. This makes that user’s network bigger like a snowball. That is one of the reasons why the number of Facebook users has reached to millions. Another function of Facebook is that every user has a “wall” beside its profile. This wall is for the messages from friends which can be seen by everyone. These messages can be like pictures, videos or any written material. These messages are not only open to the senders but also to the others who are let by the user. Most users prefer not to delete these messages even though they say that they feel disturbed by those. According to Walther and his friends, the explanation to this lies in the spirit of the usage of Facebook and the reaction to this is against the usage of Facebook, and thus against the rules of friendship. For this reason, the users don’t delete these messages no matter to what extent they feel disturbed by these messages, leaving them as they are for the people they know or not (Walther et al., 2008). Even though those messages are not put by the user himself but by one of his friends, they can be seen by other friends in his friend list (if they are given permission). Those messages can even be transmitted to other people and this extends the network like that. According to Walther and his friends, this feature of Facebook has differentiated it from other similar websites, and even made it unique (Walther et al., 2008). The member number of this recent social website has been increasing day by day. According to the statistics of the website, by March 2008 there were over 70 million active members (www.facebook.com). According to Alexa statistics, it has ranked 8th among the most visited websites and 1st as a social sharing website.(www.alexa.com). The most increasing age group is 25 and it’s above. In a month, over 65 billion profile has been viewed. 45% users visit the website everyday. The users spend 25 minutes average in a day. Putting pictures as most popular feature of Facebook is almost on a record level. On average, more than 14 million photos have been uploaded to the website everyday. There are more than six million groups (www.facebook.com). The website is the second most used one in Turkey (www.alexa.com). By the end of February, it had 2.836.180 users, which has made Turkey the fourth country which uses Facebook the most after United States, Canada and England respectively ((htpp://thekillerattiude.com). Many reasons can be shown for this increase in the number of users both in the world and in Turkey. The most important one is the fact that the website has a function to be able to limit what they want to show to the others, or who they want to share with. The users have the opportunity to view other people’s profiles even though they are strangers or to see those people’s walls. Friends on Facebook can see each others’ profiles. At the profile search, users can let everyone or just a group of people can search for themselves. Since Facebook is data sharing system, it is quite an important storage about its users. Although, its restricted membership system seems to simplify the security matters, Facebook has its own risks as well. The most important of these is that the data put in the website by users can be circulated without any permission. Lately, this feature of the website has been perceived as a serious threat. This perception is coming from power agencies or commercial 2
The friend concept in a social network is described as the person taking place in the list of somebody else. This
includes both long-term friends and other strangers who are only contacted with when they are online. In such a
kind of world friendship is the order of visits to other people’s pages (Rosenblum, 2007).
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concerns. Most of the users have stated this with the changing privacy perception. Despite those risks, the users are still continuing their voluntary disclosure, opening up their personal information to sharing and the reasons behind this action has gained more importance. That’s why; the reasons behind this voluntary disclosure will be focused on in the next section. 4. The Pleasure Of The Conjectural Explosure: Facebook Facebook has enlarging the space for its usage providing its users with the opportunity to reach other members’ personal data whether they know those people or not. The website has becoming global data storage with this feature. In addition, with both technical features and lack of security, the website has become a 24 hour “live broadcast tool” for its users. This live broadcast tool gives people the opportunity to see other people or groups’ opinions and actions. For instance, the updated status feature like “Ayse is on holiday”, “Mehmet is sleeping right now.” and “Sevgi has added Caglayan to her friend list” is a part of this live broadcasting, which mirrors what these users are doing in Facebook network. It needs to be underlined that it is the features of internet technology which has turned Facebook into such a live broadcast tool. In other words, Facebook has taken its feature from the power of internet technology. Thanks to internet technology, the collected data can be kept, matched, marketed and circulated. Even though that data go through DNA codes or photos beyond just the numbers and names, it is still the power of internet technology which made that watch happen. While on the one hand, internet has grown incredibly technically, on the other hand it creates observation systems like this (Lyon, 2006). The data sharing on the net has made the attack to the privacy possible which used to be impossible to imagine before. Against this attack, some people are worried about their loss of privacy. The reasons behind this are centered on either security or people’s not caring about the privacy just to get benefit from the fruits of technology. Because of these reasons, people do not care about their privacy or they voluntarily give their personal data. Another reason behind this is related to the person’s inner life. This is the desire of the people to expose themselves and to see the exposed. This very desire of exposure can be satisfied easily on internet. Regarding this, Altheide maintains that the internet user is a peeper and exhibitionist: “We watch other people and by doing this we know that other people are also watching us and we even want to be watched” (Altheide, 2004). Internet screen is the screen of desire at this point (Kahraman, 2005). Tufekci has emphasized the act of disclosure in the social sharing websites According to him, people; especially teenagers want to be watched and to watch. Social sharing websites like Facebook are very crucial tools serving this aim. Almost all social network sites have privacy control at different levels and the most important of all these is the “visibility” limit. Even though these websites have limitation system, most users are either not aware of this function or they don’t give importance to it (Tufekci, 2008), because the limitation on the visibility does not make the user visible or restrict other users. People’s disclosures of themselves and their desire to be a part of other people’s disclosures stems from the curiosity about other people’s lives. Baudrillard emphasizes the point that this has turn into a life style. According to him, learning that somebody has a private life is not important, because something like this can only make one curious a bit, that is all. However, “the important thing is that being watched has become a secret life style” (Baudrillard, 2002). Within this respect, as mentioned, the reasons behind people’s voluntary disclosures are beyond security matters and political and economic profits. As stated by Nelkin, this is more 486
about the people’s “pleasure”3 in being watched (as stated by Dedeoglu, 2004). At this point, Zizek makes an explanation setting out from Benhtham’s Panoptikon: According to Bentham, the reason why Panoptikon was so effective, was because of the fact that the subjects ( the convicts, patients, students, workers) were never sure of whether or not they were being watched from the central control tower (where everything can be seen). This uncertainty intensifies the threat around the feeling that it is impossible to escape from the eye of the other. This point has been made clear with the explanation about the relationship between the watching and the joy in the famous movie “Rear Window” by Alfred Hitchcok. In the movie, the photographer L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart), has an accident while displaying a car race and breaks his leg. While passing his time by peeping his neighbors in his flat in New York City, he gets this suspect that one of his neighbors has killed his wife. According to Zizek, Jeff’s eye as the observer loses its role as the observer at the point where it met the other eye and becomes a part of what it has observed before. Actually, this person is facing his desire by keeping on the peeping. As stated by Zizek, Jeff’s (and our) obsession with what’s going on at the other apartment has a function which helps us not to miss what is going on while sitting at this side of the window. Rear Window, is actually a story of an escaping subject who has becoming the power through peeing. The people living across Jeff have been watched by Jeff’s careful eyes constantly but they don’t feel disturbed by this. They rather keep their daily lives going by ignoring it. On the contrary, it is Jeff’s himself who feels nervous, worrying that he might miss an important detail, and thus constantly peeping through the window. The center of Panaptikon is the eye reaching everywhere. Rear window is a fantastic window compared to this (Zizek 2005). It is the invisibility which makes this peeping attractive. Watching without being seen is a fundamental human fantasy (Nalcaoglu, 2005). Each Facebook user is also like Jeff. This 7/24 fantasy window offers its users to see what others are doing every day by turning them a part of what they are peeing. As stated by Rosenbulum, especially young generation are searching for the human relations at My Space, winking at Match.com and the pokes at Facebook. The users live for the numbers their profiles have been displayed, the pictures at the website and the pokes they get (Rosenbulum, 2008). The users find games and joy in these websites. The line between the viewer and the one being viewed has been lost. The viewer has become a part of what he is watching. Even though the concern about to what extent relaxation can be felt in these networks has existed, this concern leaves its place to the comfort. In the base of this, there has been the postmodern view, according to which “the fear of what it is behind the screen” has left its place to a pure trust perception (Zizek, 2002). It is the joy that people take behind the fact that they make themselves visible first, and then demand on other people’s being visible. One of the causes for this state of getting pleasure is the culture industry as stated by Adorna. According to him, for the individual inside the culture industry, pleasure is the most important thing. There are many subjects around, consuming and even applying to violence in order to get pleasure. This pleasure person has come up to the cursed side of the human being. Even though human being’s destruction as the subject and the ruling of the human against nature within this destruction has increased, the masses’ weakness and the possibility of being driven have also been increased in an unfair way. The information flood in the culture industry is everywhere. While this 3
In the early studies of Lacan, the pleasure has been used as the sexual pleasure. However, later it is used to
describe the impulses beyond Freud’s pleasure principle. This satisfaction appears also in the physical or
psychical type. That’s why it also carries an unconscious masochistic character (Wright, 2000).
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information makes the subjects who feel it a necessity to have fun all the time, it produces appropriate people for the culture industry. With the culture industry, the interior of the subject where the mind rules, has become empty, which caused the loss of the state of subjectivity. The subjectivities leave their places to the ones which resemble themselves. While the differences are being lost, the subject has started to become nothing. The subject has becoming an object of the culture industry (Adorno, 2002). As stated by Boudrillard, the inclination of consumption has becoming more related to the individual’s personal pleasure: “The consumers are also satisfying (even maybe much more) their emotional desires as well as (than) their material needs” (Boudrillard, 1997). Briefly, for the subjects who are similar, more important than the privacy they have lost under the observance is those observance tools’ giving pleasure to their users as the tool for fun and the voluntary participation in this micro custody game to get pleasure. For this reason, they would not like to abandon these pleasure tools and would like to keep being around as pleasure glutton. 4. Methodology The aim: Through this study, besides the perception of privacy at Facebook users, the reasons behind the voluntary disclosure of those people has been investigated. A field research about how dense is the users’ database of Facebook and how people describe this website has been made. Method: A descriptive research among Facebook users was made. The main topics are like: The density of user database of the website, the reasons of membership, the content of users’ profiles, the users’ approach to the website in the privacy respect, the reasons of voluntary disclosure, and whether the privacy approach makes any different in the formation of these reasons or not. Sample: The subjects are composed of the university students in Turkey who are members of Facebook. A survey form has been sent to the students studying at different universities through e‐mail. The subjects are 280 people in total, 138 (49, 3%) of which are women and 142 (50, 7%) of which are men. Age distribution among the subjects is like: 46.1% (129 people) aged 22 or over; 21, 8 % (61 people) aged 21; 20, 4 % (57 people) aged 20; 7, 1 % (20 people) aged 19; 4.3 % (12 people) aged 18; 0.4 % (1 person) aged 17. Although there was no gender quota, the rate for gender between those randomly selected participants was obtained, which also made the normal distribution in the data evaluation according to gender possible. The survey form: Descriptive questions and nominal scaling was used. Data Analysis: Descriptive statistical methods were used to determine the relationship between variables. 5. Findings 5.1 The Function of Facebook usage and the density of its user database From the first moment it was founded, Facebook has been a website about which there have been many discussions going on. The website has created its own addicts in the world and in Turkey. It was in 2007 when it started to attract the attentions in Turkey. So, when compared to the other countries, the popularity in Turkey is quite recent. According to the research 488
findings: while 51, 8 % became a member within the past 6 months, 33, 9 % did so within the past 1 year and 9.6 % became so in the first months. It can be said that most of the members have started to use Facebook within the past 6 months. According to the findings, the users have constantly visited the website: 38, 6 % a few times in a day and 27, 1% once in a day. Only 2, 9 % has scarcely visited the website. This shows that Facebook has been used actively by its users. The basic argument regarding Facebook is that it creates the opportunity for people to find their old friends. In other words, instead of meeting new people, the users are applying to Facebook to see their friends who they met offline altogether (Lampe, Ellison, Stenfield, 2007). These findings support and are in parallel to the idea behind Facebook. Among the reasons of the participants in the research for membership to Facebook, “ reaching the old class mates” is the most supported one with a percentage of 57,1 % whereas “ My friend suggested” one has a 53,9 % support. The findings show that Facebook is more used to find old friends instead of meeting new ones. 32, 5% users prefer Facebook because “Everybody is in Facebook” and an interesting reason is like “to gather data about the people are curious” with the percentage of 24, 6 % (Table 1). The ones who selected “the other” option stated their reasons as like: “because of boredom”, “to get together all my friends under a framework”, “to stay in touch”, “there are fun games and activities”, and “a good communication environment”. Table: 1. The Reasons of Membership to Facebook
% The Reasons of Membership to Facebook To find old class mates 57,1 My friend suggested 53,9 Everybody is on Facebook 32,5 To gather more data about those that I am curious 24,6 To get the information about the facilities at school 17,9 To meet groups/ people with whom I have common interest 15 To meet new people 12,1 To get those people who know me have more information about me 12,1 To get information about lessons and conferences 8,6 Other 6,4 5 To get news about new opportunities To get a girl/boy friend 2,9 Total answer 695 N 280 Some questions regarding the friend density of the users and the continuity of this friendship relationship on Facebook were asked. The users were asked how many friends they have on Facebook. As shown in table 2, most users have around 101‐200 friends. The average number of friends is 162. While the highest number of friends is 680, the lowest one is 5. 489
Table: 2. The number of friends of Facebook users. % Number Interval 1‐100 31,1 101‐200 41,8 201‐300 14,6 301‐above 10,4 No answer 2,1 Total 100 N 277 Another important finding is regarding the continuity of the friendship of the users with their friends. When they were asked with how many of their friends they were keeping in touch, 53, 9 % users have selected “few of them” option. 20% of users said “most of them”, 20% of users said “half of them”. These findings show that communication aspect of Facebook in the relationships is weak and the rate of the death of the relationships established through internet is high as stated by Castells : “ The communication through internet is fined with the breaking off the connection forever (Castells, 2005). 5.2. Data Visibility and the Privacy Concern There are security controls at different levels in most of the social sharing websites. While most of them are related to the technique, it is also related to the personal preference of visibility. The most important among all these is the visibility limit. Another one is about which data about the user will disclose about himself. Within this respect, the users’ profiles were examined. As seen in the table 3, almost all users (98, 9%) share “their names‐
surnames”. Besides this, among the most shared data, photos with a proportion of 85, 7% and dates of birth with a proportion of 85, 4% are put on the profiles without any need to be hidden. The profile data of the Facebook users Total % Female Male Name‐ Surname 277 98,9 49,8 50,2 Photos 240 85,7 38,3 51,7 Date of Birth 236 85,4 49 51 Sex 208 74,3 44,7 55,3 Education 205 73,2 51,2 48,8 Email address 198 70,7 47 53 Membership to social groups 142 50,7 48,6 51,4 Relationship Status 111 39,6 50,5 49,5 Hometown 100 35,7 47 53 Interests 87 31,1 35,6 64,4 Sexual preference 48 17,1 20,8 79,2 Information regarding his work 46 16,4 41,3 58,7 490
Political view 38 13,6 26,3 73,7 Religious view 34 12,1 35,3 64,7 Nickname 29 10,4 31 69 Mobile phone 16 5,7 25 75 Address 14 5 14,3 85,7 Land phone 4 1,4 25 75 Concentration 2 0,7 100 0 Total Answer 2038 N 280 138 142 The most common data the users share about themselves is demographic data. These data make it easy to reach the users in the social sharing websites. An interesting finding is that very few users share their mobile phone numbers (5,7 %), addresses (5%) and land phone number (1,4%). In a way, this shows what is important for the users concerning privacy. Another question about visibility is that for whom these data is not limited. Technically, the users can open up their profile to their friends, friends’ friends, other people in their universities or at the same network or they can show it to everyone. It should be noted that these settings does not constitute any obstacle before their being searched for and found. However, the attitude towards visibility issue is important in the preference of the users. The findings showed that 65, 4 % users open up their visibility borders only to their friends. Most of the users do not want to open up their personal info to everyone. However, 20, 7 % users want to open up their personal info to everyone. (Table 4) Table 4‐ The visibility preference of Facebook users Preference % On friends 65,4
Friends of friends 2,5 Their networks and friends 3,2 Everyone 20,7
Customize 7,5 No answer 0,7 Total 100 N 280 An important problematic issue is that even though the users think that they set the security settings as they wish, the data put on the website has no security guarantee. According to recent news about this, with a program called Miner, it is possible to collect the personal info, and friend list of the users. In other words, it is possible to reach not only the user’s data but also everybody else in the friend list (www.hurriyet.com). Thinking about the educational level of the users, most of them are aware of these dangers. Through the research the users were asked if they feel disturbed by these so‐called dangers, their personal information’s being viewed and read by others or not. While 50,7 % users said “no”, 49,3 % users said “yes”. Men (63,4 %) were more comfortable in the visibility issue compared to women (62,5 %) who felt more discomfort about their personal info. being viewed by others which makes it clear that gender plays an important role. In parallel to this, the approach to the personal data put on the website is different at men and women. While women share their personal info, like name‐surname, date of birth, education, sex, email address and so on, they feel disturbed by 491
those data being viewed by others, whereas men share their profile info, without feeling any discomfort in being viewed by others (table3). The users feel discomfort most especially when their mobile phone number (36,1%), land phone number (35,4%), address (36,1 %), e‐mail address (17,9%), info about their friends (20,4%), and the conversation they made (30,7 %), the photos they put on the website (20,4 %) are being viewed by others whom they don’t give permission. Does the concern related to the usage of Facebook hinder the desire of reaching others’ personal information? This question is categorized into two parts because it is thought that there would be difference between the desire to view friends’ profiles and the desire to view strangers’ profiles. The findings supported that view: 91, 8 % users said they would look their friends’ profiles. Among the profile data the followings are viewed most: Name‐
surname (33,9 %), email address (21,1 %), education (37,1 %), social group membership (41,8 %), relationship status (25,7 %), date of birth (37,5 %), photos (81,8 %), interests (34, 6 %), the information about friends (21,4 %), the conversation made with friends (17,1 %) and activities (30%). The interesting point is that the desire to see the photos of friends has a high rate like 81, 8 %. This desire to see the photos of friends brings also together with the desire of the users are also seeing the people who they don’t know. This result is a proof of the exposure of the internet user and his desire to see other people’s life. 58, 2 % users, prefer to see the profiles of others who they don’t know. This percentage is comparatively low, however, 41, 8 % users still accepting that they are observers. From the collected data, it is found out that those people generally look at the strangers’ photos, educational background, relationship status and social groups they are in. These findings show that people don’t show the same sensibility they expect from others to those people. An important number of the participants taking part in the research have the desire to see other people’s personal information whether they know them or not. This internet screen has become their “rear window”. It has also been tested whether there is any relationship between the users’ profiles being viewed and also their viewing other friends’ profiles. According to the findings, there is no relationship between those two (Sig. 0,246, p>0, 05). There is no meaningful relationship between the users’ personal information being viewed and their looking at other users’ profiles (Sig. 0,170, p>0,05). An important issue for Facebook users is regarding the point that the data’s (on the website) being open to examine is seen as an intervention into the private life or not. According to the findings, 73 women (36 %) and 130 men (64 %), 203 people in total do not see that as an intervention into the private life. This finding also displays the difference between the approaches of men and women. Women do not feel comfortable to the same extent with men. The relationship between whether or not the users feel discomfort in their own personal information’s examination and the space Facebook created to view those information making it an intervention into the private life has been questioned. A meaningful relationship between those is found (Sig. 0,000 p<0,05). While on the one hand, the users express discomfort about their personal information being viewed, on the other hand, they don’t regard information sharing on Facebook as an intervention into the private life. When the reasons for this were asked, 46,8% users stated that they accepted the condition that they would agree on sharing information before getting membership to the website. Another interesting finding is that 22,9 % users don’t perceive the data put on the website as private. In this respect, the website is seen as public space. 21,9 % users stated that they don’t feel disturbed by being watched by others, selecting the option “ I have nothing to 492
hide, I am not disturbed.” Another sign that makes it clear that these users don’t feel any discomfort by being watched by others is the rate of profile updates. An important number of users (53, 9 %) hardly update their profiles. As for the others, 16, 4 % a few times in a month, 10, 7 % few times in a week, 5 % once in a month and 4, 3 % once in a day. Keeping the profiles without any update also shows that the users are not interested in protecting their profile information. According to the findings, 85,4 % users have not read the “user contract” and 86,1 % users have not read the privacy contract of Facebook. As a result, since the users hold the opinion that the personal information they put on the website has no relationship with their privacy, they do not even see it a necessity to read those contracts. Finally, what Facebook means to the users were examined. For 61 % users, Facebook is “a means to find their old friends”, for 43,6 % users, it is “a tool for fun”, for 42,9 % users, it is “a social communication tool among friends”, for 38,2 % it is “ a leisure time tool”. It can be said that the users see Facebook as a tool to keep in touch with their new and old friends as well as a tool for fun. An interesting finding here is the users’ seeing Facebook as a fun and leisure time tool. While the communication set on the networks is becoming a means of consumption, the photos and texts written here create a significant joy at users. And it is this joy which turns the website into a fun tool. 6. Conclusion Facebook is a social sharing website. This website makes it possible to open up its users’ data to sharing. As well as the conjectural communication of its users, Facebook also provides its users with easy access to other users’ data when desired. Thinking about the number of members, this data circulation has also its risks as well. Despite those risks, the reasons behind people’s keeping on doing voluntary disclosure have been tried to find out and displayed in this study. The study has shown that the users do not feel any discomfort in putting forward their personal information and other actions for sharing. Besides, the users are aware of the fact that the data they put might be used without their permission. The users who do not give their direct contacts like mobile phone, land phone or home address information, give some other ID information like their name‐surname, email address, sex, hometown, and even photos and so on. However, the fact that their photos could be copied and used in other websites by the members or by those people and companies who are not members constitutes a threat for their privacy. Similar cases like these are happening today. Even though the users have consciousness of this fact, they do not carry any concern regarding their privacy just because “they do not have anything to hide”. This view is a way of legalizing the attack done to the privacy of the users by the users themselves. As well as seeing it as a social communication network, the users also see Facebook as a tool for fun. The social activities, groups, various applications and games make Facebook look like a website for leisure time. It is also seen as a “communication board” because it lets people know the facilities going on. For the subject who has become an object of the culture industry in these social sharing websites, more than the privacy lost, it is the joy what has become important with these websites’ being used as a tool for fun. In this way, the individuals have become the “new custody players” who will take the place of the “big brother” and the website has turned into a tool for eliminating the curiosity about other people’s privacy. Maybe in the future, this 493
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