Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, once proclaimed in an interview that the “age of privacy” had to come o an end.  According to Zuckerberg, social norms had changed and people were no longer worried about sharing their personal information with friends, friends of friends, or even the entire Web. This view is in accordance with Facebook’s broader goal, which is, according to Zuckerberg, to make the world a more open and connected place. Many Facebook features are premised on this position.  Supporters of Zuckerberg’s viewpoint believe the 21st century is an age of “information exhibitionism,” a new era of openness and transparency.

Although Facebook started out at Harvard and other campuses with simple privacy policy of not fiving anyone except friends access to your profile, this quickly changed as its founder Mark Zuckerberg realized the revenue-generating potential of a social networking site open to the public.

Facebook has al long history of invading the personal privacy of its users. In fact, the very foundation of Facebook’s business model is to sell the personal information of its users to advertisers. In essence, Facebook is like any broadcast or cable television service that users entertainment to attract large audiences, and then once those audiences are in place, to sell air time to advertisers in 30-to 60-second blocks. Of course, television broadcasters do not have much if any personal information on their users, and in that sense are much less of a privacy threat. Facebook, currently with over 2 billion users worldwide, clearly attracts a huge audience.

In late 2017 and 2018, concerns about Facebook and privacy invasion came to the fore with the Cambridge analytical scandal mentioned in the video. In March 2018, Facebook announced changes to its privacy settings, which are discussed in the video “Facebook Privacy Settings Tutorial” below —

Facebook Privacy Settings Tutorial (Links to an external site.)
Minimize Video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajrt_U_UrUQ&feature=emb_title 

Dear Anush, Azhar, Bat-Ider, Dhruv, Gangul, Kalyan, Kinjalben, Jeet, Hoa, Sanjarbek, Raja, Vikas and Yolanda, 

Week 7 Class Discussion topic comes from — Chapter 8 “Ethical, Social, and Political Issues in E-commerce”

This class expects you to contribute two times:

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Your contribution one — answer one question only out of four questions below after your reviewing Case8.2 “Facebook Privacy” listed above (also attached here):

Question #1: Do people who used Facebook have a legitimate claim to privacy when they themselves are posting information about themselves?

Question #2: Why did Facebook announce changes to its privacy settings in March 2018?

Question #3: What changes to privacy settings did Facebook announce?

Question #4: How will changing your settings on Facebook help protect your privacy?

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Your contribution two — comment on one of your classmates’ posting on his/her contribution one

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You will earn 2 points from your completed contribution one (please list question number with the question first. For example, “Question #2: Why did Facebook announce changes to its privacy settings in March 2018?” followed by your answer).

You will earn 2 points from your completed contribution two (please provide that classmate name at the beginning of your response. Everybody would benefit more if we can follow discussion thread exactly. Otherwise, you will not receive a full 2 points).

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You are expected to study Chapter 8, or at least to study slides from Chapter 8 carefully. You can find chapter slides under “Files”.

Always, you must Unicheck before your posting.

-Professor Da