Friends Only:Examining a Privacy-Enhancing Behavior in Facebook

Fred Stutzman and Jacob Kramer-Duffield, UNC

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47% SNS use in 2009

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2009, 2010

Changes in SNS adoption landscape

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2009, 2010

Changes in SNS landscape

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Teens and Young AdultsAdults 35 and Older

Changes in Facebook

2004 2005 2006 20072008 2009

Facebookat Harvard

Open to most colleges

News Feedintroduced

Open toselectworkplaces

Open toregionalnetworks

BeaconEnd ofregionalnetworks

Terms ofservicechange

Publicprofiles

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Growth of Facebook (Millions)UNC Undergrad Privacy (Percentage)

Changes in Facebook

Implications of Change Shift from common

identity to common bond e.g. Ren, Kraut & Kiesler,

2007; Sassenberg, 2002 Uses, flows of social

capital and social support e.g. Lampe et al. 2008

Management of disclosureboundaries and contexts

Managing Contexts

Presence of multiple social groups Behavioral strategies Mental

strategies “Least common

denominator”

Source: Lampinen et al., 2009

Context Tension Connections across status and power

boundaries Propriety, work, family

Harms from crossed boundaries Inadvertent

disclosures across contexts

Source: Skeels and Grudin, 2009

Putting Context in Context

Friendster “Burners, gay

men, and bloggers”

Myspace Teens and mirror

profilesTwitter

Practical obscurity

Source: boyd, 2006, 2007, Stutzman and Hartzog, 2009

Going Friends-Only Moving profile from

network-viewable to viewable only by Friends

Implications: Searching, browsing and

finding Networked information

contribution, apps Person perception,

relational formation

Going Friends-Only

Publicly available information: Name, city, gender, photo, list of friends, fan pages, networks, friends list (temporarily)

Going Friends-Only

2004 2005 2006 2007 20080

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UNC Undergrad Privacy (Percent-

age)

Use Privacy Settings: 83.2%

Friends-only: 58.3%

2005: 5% (+/-1), 2006: 12% (+/- 1), 2007: 23% (+/- 4), 2008: 58% (+/- 5)

Going Friends-Only RQ: What factors are

associated with having a friends-only profile?

Boundary regulation theories of privacy Altman, Derlega and Chaikin

Applied in HCI, Social Computing Palen and Dourish, Tufekci, Dwyer

Applied in Organizations (Allen et al.), Education (Mazer et al.), Communication (Petronio, Child et al.)

Self

Others

Petronio’s CPM Process of Communication Privacy

Management

Rule Development Who gets to know what

Boundary coordination Applying rules-in-context

Boundary turbulence Reacting to events,

managing and regulating rules

Source: Petronio, 2003

Study Design Web-based survey

Pilot test, n=76 Full survey, June 2008,

n=494

Response Analysis 94% of respondents used

Facebook Analytical sample, n=444 Males, minorities,

youngerstudents under-represented

Analysis is unweighted, FPCnot applied

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Analytic Plan RQ: What factors are associated with having a

friends-only profile? DV: Having a friends only profile

Models Null and demographic baselines Rule development Boundary coordination Boundary turbulence

Evaluation Within comparison likelihood ratio test Between comparison with AIC, BIC, ROC

Males Females0

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Friends-OnlyPublic

Baseline Model Demographic factors

School year, gender, ethnicity Facebook use factors

Number of friends, length of membership, time spent on site

Step 1 Step 2

School Year .996 1.089

Gender .596* .620*

Ethnicity 1.34 1.44

# FB Friends 1.001**

FB Mem Length .882

FB Min/Day .999

L-R Test F:0.0171*

Rule Development Who do you tell what?

H1: Strong ties = inward-focused

H2: Random ties = outside-focused e.g. Strahilevitz, 2005

Evaluation No items, blocks significant Problems: Lack of variation

due to normative orientation in friending practices; Instrumentation

Ties

Strong Ties

Family Members 11.2%

Best Friends 98.6%

Weak Ties

Casual Friends 95.1%

Campus Acq. 95.1%

Outside Ties

Faculty 1.6%

Potential Employers

2.8%

Marketers 28.3%

Law Enforcement

1.6%

Scale: Lampe et al., 2006, 2008; Ellison et al. 2007

Boundary Coordination Coordinating

permeability rules Friends can know

my gossip People around

campus shouldn’t

Salient audiences Intended audience Expected audience

Ties Intended

Expected

Strong Ties

Family Members 14.3% 38.4%***

Best Friends 94.9% 88.5%***

Weak Ties

Casual Friends 75.4% 56.9%***

Campus Acq. 75.4% 56.9%***

Outside Ties

Faculty 2.6% 10.5%**

Potential Employers

3.0% 9.4%**

Marketers 9.6% 7.9%

Law Enforcement

2.6% 4.3%

Boundary Coordination Exploring the effects of “expectancy

violations” Violations effects coded Analyzed simultaneously

Evaluation Weak tie expectancy

violations result in 3.31 increase in odds of beingfriends-only

The meaningful externalboundary?

Violation Odds

Gender (control) .629*

Family Members 1.105

Best Friends .85

Weak Ties 3.32**

Faculty .52

Potential Employers .866

Marketers .895

Law Enforcement 1.16

Boundary Turbulence Maintenance and (re)negotiation of disclosure

boundaries

Predictors Conversant privacy scale

Advised someone to change FB profile/picture…

Wall management scale Removed wall post

(self/other)

Covariates Gender, profile management effort

Alphas: Conversant: .69, Wall: .73, Effort: .79

Boundary Turbulence Exploring effects of interpersonal privacy

management Analyzed simultaneously

Evaluation Individuals who engage in

higher amounts of conversant management more likely to have friends-only profile

Gender, effort not significant

Violation Odds

Gender (control) .681

Effort (control) .952

Wall Management .967

Conversant Management

1.28**

Model Comparison Compare predictive strength of the

models Non-nested comparisons employ AIC, BIC, ROC,

etc. All models represent incremental improvements

Rank Model

1 Behavioral – Facebook Use

2 Boundary Turbulence – Interpersonal Management

3 Boundary Coordination – Expectancy Violations

Goals Explore the process of

going friends-only Apply theories of

boundary regulation, and Communications Privacy Management, in SNS context

Identify and prioritize models for further exploration

Implications Dynamic identification of functional network

boundary Opportunity to create

non-reciprocal communication interfaces

Increase opportunities for collaboration around privacy settings

Thank you!

Fred StutzmanFred.stutzman@unc.eduhttp://twitter.com/fstutzman

Jacob Kramer-Duffieldjkramerd@gmail.comhttp://twitter.com/jaykaydee