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Privacy in the Social Media Era

Sam Anderson
10/25/2017
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Table of Contents

Executive Summary 3
Introduction 3
High Level Solution 5
Solution Details 7
Benefits 7
Conclusion 8
References 9
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Executive Summary
As social media platforms are evolving and upgrading with new technology features, like live
video sharing, it is increasingly important to be more transparent with the users of those
platforms on what information is being shared. Most users are unaware of what information is
being sold off and shared to third parties because of the current practices being implemented.
This can benefit the company and the user. The company can get access to a more complete
data set on the demographic they are wanting to sell information about, and the user can feel
more at ease by knowing exactly where the information they share is going. This white paper
outlines the current state of social media platforms, as well as identifies solutions that can
benefit both the company providing the social media platform, as well as the user.

Introduction
Gone are the days where 120 characters and a limited stockpile of emojis quenched our thirst
for likes, shares, retweets and follows. As if the static, minute by minute updates we swipe
through on any given social media platform werent adequate enough for us, we can now
actually watch live video content hosted by social media platforms such as Twitch, Instagram,
YouTube, the seemingly immortal Facebook and countless others. With the ability to broadcast
live video, what are the privacy implications of the person broadcasting? Are the companies
running these platforms doing enough to protect their users of the live video platforms? Does
every user know exactly what information they are sharing?

Streaming live broadcasts isnt anything new. In fact, this concept has been around for a couple
decades. Rewind to early September in 1995 when a live broadcast of a Seattle Mariners and
New York Yankees game was streamed to thousands of ESPN Sports Zone subscribers. These
two teams would become a part of tech history as they gave the world its first live streaming
event. The Seattle-based company, RealNetworks, developed the technology that brought the
baseball game into the homes of fans around the globe and would eventually be overtaken by
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Microsofts Windows Media Technologies and again later by Adobe Systems Flash Player.
However, none of these conglomerates would anticipate the upcoming social media obsession
that would dominate the late 2000s into the present day. Platforms such as these paved the
way for individuals to be able to broadcast through their respective smart devices.

Today, social media accessibility through smart phones is the driving force for the success of
almost everything tech-related. With live streaming apps like YouNow, Twitch and Periscope,
users can engage in real time with millions of viewers. As of August 2015, however, Facebooks
1.6 billion users worldwide have joined the streaming party eliminating all competition. With
roughly a fifth of the population tuned in to some sort of social media feed, this raises a
question: When does live streaming begin to invade our privacy?

In January of 2017, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown live streamed head coach
Mike Tomlins post-game locker room speech complete with explicative and aggressive rhetoric
aimed at an AFC rival team. While Tomlin intended this speech to be heard only by his team,
Browns live stream featuring Tomlin referring to the New England Patriots as A-holes landed
him in hot water with the NFL. Had Brown known that live streaming his coachs speech
through Facebook would make national headlines, maybe he would have thought twice.
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High Level Solution

In the story above, Brown (and others like him) have miscalculated Facebooks livestreaming
capabilities. Had there been a simple notification before the streaming began, maybe they
would have thought twice. Many users find themselves in the dark about live streaming privacy.
In a world of instant gratification, many users dont realize the long-term risks of sharing their
personal information through live streaming. According to Facebooks terms and conditions,
everything you post belongs to Facebook.

Richard Prince, A New York based photographer, tends to rely substantially on the work of
others. That is, Prince created an entire gallery of Instagram users photos. According to
Instagrams terms of service, anything that anyone posts belong to , well, everyone. Essentially,
Prince was breaking no law by featuring other users posts in his gallery. Prince (2015) claims I
called the photo/texts tweets I was posting The Family. I posted photos of my extended family
mother, brother, sister, nieces, cousins, uncles, aunts, in-laws, step-children .

However, Princes new work consists mainly of twenty something Instagram users posed in
sexually explicit and artfully stances. Most of his subjects are women. According to many
distant viewers, Prince simply took Instagram users photographs, blew them up and collected
his money. The original posters of Princes work claim they had not been contacted at all prior
to the showing of their posts, not even to explain his intentions. It wasnt until friends began to
see their posts in Prince gallery that they even caught wind of the exhibition. Instagram user,
Jan Gatewood (2015) says I was confused because I was unaware of who he was. I noticed he
had a pretty good amount of followers so I tweeted about what happened, and some friends
further informed me of who he is and what he does. He did not get in touch with me and ask
me for permission.

However, Gatewood is content with the using of his photos because it meant more publicity to
his Instagram page. Sita Alban (2015) explains that she understands people's disdain for Prince
but thinks he is a really cool artist and feels special that an artist like him used her picture
to complete his gallery. However, Alban also understands why people are upset.

In 2015, many Facebook users received a message implying that the social media trailblazers
privacy policy was changing. Upon logging in after receiving that message users had already
agreed to the new terms and conditions. This newer policy worried German Johannes Caspar
and even questioned whether or not this change violated German law. Caspar focused his
grievance with Facebooks privacy changes on a section that stated Facebook has the right to
share user data with partnered sites and apps.
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One way to solve the Facebook privacy breach problem is to implement technology so that
these private companies do not have access to your data in the first place. The creator of the
freedom box, Eben Moglen, claims that the legal system cannot respond to the digital new
age and that technology is the best answer to privacy preservation. The freedom box and
other tech-prominent solutions remain on the back burner as many web users are still puzzled
by the term cookie and wouldnt know their server from a hole in the ground. The freedom
box essentially is a piece of hardware that allows anything on your network to be free from
being monitored or marketed to.
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Solution Details
One way to be sure that users are aware of what they are sharing online is making the sign up
process more transparent to what information will be shared with 3rd parties, as well as what
information will just be readily accessible to other users on the platform. Currently the signup
process for most major social media sites is just a simple checkbox that asks the user if they
have read and agree to their terms of service. According to a 2015 survey, only 17.56 percent of
people said that they always read the terms of service. That means 82.44 percent of people
dont fully know exactly what they are signing up for. While it is necessary to have long and
verbose terms of service to protect the company, there is nothing preventing them from
paraphrasing what is going to be done with their data once it is on their platform.

Social media platforms could also implement tiered levels of service depending on what level of
privacy and sharing that the user is comfortable with. The user would get more perks, with the
more information that they choose to share. Again, this is about being more transparent and
allowing the user to know what type of information the platform is after so they can feel more
at ease knowing the exact information that is being shared. For example, the platform can have
a basic level of access that only includes certain features, or only operates at a certain speed. If
the user chooses to go to the next tier, they are asked a series of questions about different
things the platform wants information on so they can achieve a better level of service from the
platform.

Benefits
So how can Facebook, YouTube, Twitch and other streaming services benefit from
implementing more transparent terms and conditions into their privacy policies? Through a
little something called Programmatic Advertising. Here is where the real value of user's data
comes into play. According to Ginny Marvin (2017), Programmatic advertising helps automate
the decision-making process of media buying by targeting specific audiences and
demographics.

In short, this extremely targeted form of advertising involves artificial intelligence, as well as
real-time bidding, to match digital ads to a users browsing history in a fraction of a second.
With clearer and more easily understood terms of service, users are less likely to create phony
social media accounts which means more reliable or realistic user data that social media
companies can sell at a higher cost. For example, as it currently stands, Facebook (2016)
collects information in or about the content [users] provide, such as the location of a photo or
the date a file was created. Additionally, even more data is collected when you view or
interact with other users content as well as the frequency and duration of the interaction. If
social media users were more aware of the data they are providing to these platforms, there
would be less bogus accounts created and less ambiguity when it comes to the authenticity of
user data. When it comes to Companies digital advertising campaigns, securing authentic user
data is the equivalent of striking gold.
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Conclusion
In a perfect world, both the consumer and the producer would receive equal benefits from this
social media services in exchange for data arrangement. While this is not the case today,
more and more online platforms are compensating users who drive traffic to their sites (e.g.
YouTubes AdSense program). On the back end, this traffic is chock-full of valuable data that
modern Wall Street is breaking down doors for. Progression towards mutual compensation for
data begins with educating users on what types of data they are producing, who it will be
visible to and how the data will be used. By allowing users to select the level, or tier, of
service in exchange for data, a mutual understanding and a new level of respect is reached for
both the privacy of the user and the integrity and ethical business practices of the social media
platform. If more digital-based companies adopted this type of concept, perhaps there would
be less resistance as a whole to the current technological shift.
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References

Molina, B. (2016, May 23). Facebook Live or Periscope? Sizing up streaming video. Retrieved
October 12, 2017, from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/05/23/facebook-live-periscope-sizin
g-up-streaming-video/84782838/

Aslam, S. (2017, January 25). Periscope by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts.
Retrieved October 12, 2017, from
https://www.omnicoreagency.com/periscope-statistics/

Zambelli, A. (2013, March 01). A history of media streaming and the future of connected TV.
Retrieved October 13, 2017, from
https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/mar/01/hist
ory-streaming-future-connected-tv

Hern, A. (2017, January 05). Facebook Live is changing the world - but not in the way it hoped.
Retrieved October 10, 2017, from
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/05/facebook-live-social-media-live
-streaming

Pedernales, L. (2017, January 26). Live Streaming: The Privacy Concerns of Behind-the-Scenes
Access. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/live-streaming-the-privacy-concerns-of-50354/

Parkinson, H. J. (2015, July 18). Instagram, an artist and the $100,000 selfies appropriation in
the digital age. Retrieved October 10, 2017, from
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/18/instagram-artist-richard-prince-
selfies

Morrison, K. (2015, May 27). Survey: Many Users Never Read Social Networking Terms of
Service Agreements. Retrieved October 20, 2017, from
http://www.adweek.com/digital/survey-many-users-never-read-social-networking-term
s-of-service-agreements/

Marvin, G. (2017, January 09). What Is Programmatic Advertising & Media Buying? - MarTech
Landscape. Retrieved October 22, 2017, from
https://martechtoday.com/martech-landscape-what-is-programmatic-ad-buying-15745
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Garst, K. (2015, October 14). How Live-Streaming Is Changing The Face Of Social Media.
Retrieved October 23, 2017, from
https://www.salesforce.com/ca/blog/2015/10/live-streaming-and-social-media.html
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Facebook. (2016, September 29). Facebook Data Policy / Terms of Service. Retrieved October
24, 2017, from https://www.facebook.com/full_data_use_policy