Presentation at AoIR Internet Research 15 annual conference in Daegu, Korea

1. PRIVACY AND CONTROL IN
MARK ZUCKERBERG’S
DISCOURSE ON FACEBOOK
Michael Zimmer, PhD
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
@michaelzimmer
www.michaelzimmer.org
Anna Lauren Hoffmann, PhD
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
@annaeveryday
www.annaeveryday.com
IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

2. IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

3. IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

4. “create a richer, faster way for people to
share information about what was
happening around them”
IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

5. 5

6. 6
1. What is the purpose and value of sharing?
2. What are reasonable expectations of
privacy?
3. What kind of control should users be
provided?
4. What are the rights & responsibilities of
users?
5. What is relationship between platform and
users?

7. IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

8. IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

9. ZUCKERBERG’S PHILOSOPHY
OF PRIVACY
1. Information wants to be shared
• “If people share more, the world will be more open
and connected…a better world.”
2. Privacy must be overcome
• “we got people through this really big hurdle of
getting people to want to put up their [personal
information]”
3. Control is the new privacy
• “What people want isn’t complete privacy. …It’s
that they want control over what they share and
what they don’t.”
Zimmer, M. (2014, February 4). Mark Zuckerberg’s theory of privacy.
The Washington Post, C1-C2.
IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

10. AT THE FOUNDATIONS OF
ZUCKERBERG’S PHILOSOPHY
At the foundation of any normative
philosophy are at least two sets of
assumptions:
1. About people and how they operate
2. About the world and how it operates
Understanding Zuck’s philosophy is, in part,
about identifying and making sense of the
assumptions at play in his discourse...
IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

11. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Zuckerberg’s use of language is not arbitrary, but
purposeful: actively shapes available conceptions of
privacy, sharing, control, and identity
Two rounds of coding...
1. Descriptive (current phase)
2. Values/Versus (future phase)
Looking for values expressed (explicitly/implictly)
when discussing:
1. what Facebook is and how it works
2. what the world is like (politically, culturally,
economically, etc...)
3. what people are like and how relationships work
IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

12. EMERGING THEMES: FACEBOOK
1. Changing definitions of Facebook
2. Facebook as “utility” for finding information
3. Facebook as “not” something else
1. ...not MySpace
2. ...not a social network
3. ...not Google (later)
4. Shift to emphasis on sharing (ca. 2008)
5. Common threads:
1. No discursive space for an absence of information
2. Atomistic (communities exist, but Facebook is
fundamentally about individual users)
IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

13. EMERGING THEMES: PEOPLE
The Iron String of Sharing (2008 forward)
Users as concrete vs. malleable
1. Facebook as passive conduit vs. active mediator
2. Naturalizing sharing on Facebook vs. shaping user
perceptions and activities
Facebook never really stopped being about college
kids
1. conception of people underwritten by privilege
2. especially present in examples re: privacy
3. helps make sense of apparently contradictory views
(regarding the state, for example)
IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

14. EMERGING THEMES: WORLD
Persistent relevance of political geography
1. Countries as standard for success, frontiers for
innovation
2. Facebook is unintelligible without reference physical
institutions or locations
Flattening of rich cultural concepts
1. Overcoming privacy = privacy as control in the service
of sharing
2. Openness as quantifiable concept
World as concrete vs. malleable
1. People just want to connect and share with each other
2. “Facebook was not originally created to be a company.
It was built to accomplish a social mission—to make the
world more open and connected.”
IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014

15. THANK
YOU
Michael Zimmer, PhD
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
@michaelzimmer
www.michaelzimmer.org
Anna Lauren Hoffmann, PhD
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
@annaeveryday
www.annaeveryday.com
IR15: Boundaries and Intersections :: Daegu, Korea :: October 22, 2014