While my Freedom of Information Act request to the Library of Congress requesting a copy of its agreement with Twitter remains unanswered, interviews with Library personnel at The American Prospect and Ars Technica provide us some insight into the nature of the agreement and the plans for the data.
Category: Social Media
Discussions of social media platforms and their impact on communication, collaboration, sociability, privacy, and norms of information flow.
How Your Private Tweets Might Be Included in the Library of Congress Public Archive
Today's announcement that the Library of Congress will be archiving all public tweets since March 2006 prompts many questions. But most people, I suspect, are comfortable with the concept since the LOC is only archiving public tweets; those who decided…
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Open Questions about Library of Congress Archiving Twitter Streams
The Library of Congress tweeted today that they are acquiring the entire archive of public Twitter activity since March 2006. While the LOC stresses that they're doing this for historical and scholarly reasons, there are major implications regarding the privacy and contextual expectations of Twitter users. Now, suddenly, all their tweets are being archived by the world's largest library. Yes, the tweets were always public and discoverable, but the searchability and accessibility will increase drastically if/when the LOC processes this archive. Due to these concerns, there are some vital questions that must be addressed prior to implementing such an expansive archive of public Twitter activity.
Yet Again, Facebook Misunderstands Privacy
Facebook recently announced a variety of proposed changes to its Privacy Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The changes to these governing documents point to the following matters, each with its own unique privacy implications: hints of a new location-based service, clarifying that sharing with "Everyone" means everyone, and, most notably, that Facebook may share your visible data directly with certain third party websites. This final point has gotten significant attention, but would like to point out a few aspects of Facebook's new language that reveals -- yet again -- that Facebook simply fails to understand the nature of privacy, especially in our online information ecosystem.
Why Pete Warden Should Not Release Profile Data on 215 Million Facebook Users
Speaking of the research ethics related to automatically harvesting public social networking data, we are confronted this week with the story of Pete Warden, a former Apple engineer who has spent the last six months harvesting and analyzing data from…
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Is it Ethical to Harvest Public Twitter Accounts without Consent?
While participating in the workshop on Revisiting Research Ethics in the Facebook Era: Challenges in Emerging CSCW Research, the question arose as to whether it was ethical for researchers to follow and systematically capture public Twitter streams without first obtaining…
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Revisiting Research Ethics in the Facebook Era: Challenges in Emerging CSCW Research
I'm currently in Savannah, GA to participate in a workshop on Revisiting Research Ethics in the Facebook Era: Challenges in Emerging CSCW Research at CSCW 2010. This is my first time at CSCW, and looking at the set of papers…
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Call for Panelists: On the Philosophy of Facebook (AoIR 2010, Gothenburg)
I am proposing a panel for Internet Research 11.0 titled "On the Philosophy of Facebook". Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has built his social networking empire on the belief that "information wants to be shared", a particular philosophy of information that directly impacts the values built into the design of Facebook, ranging from its user interface, privacy policies, terms of service, and method of governance. This panel will explore the philosophy of Facebook and its broader implications for norms of privacy, identity, governance, sociability, and online life generally.
Michael Arrington is Wrong about Privacy, Too
Responding to the brouhaha caused by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent proclamation that social norms on privacy have loosened, Michael Arrington (the tech blogger who was interviewing Zuckerberg at the time) has posted a piece on his blog Tech Crunch:…
Zuckerberg’s Remarks Aren’t Surprising, Nor New, Nor True
There's been quite a dust-up regarding Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent proclamation that social norms on privacy have changed, and that Facebook is merely reacting to these shifting norms. Lots has already been said about Zuckerberg's remarks, so I'm only going to add three thoughts to the conversation: What Zuckerberg said isn't surprising, it isn't new, and it isn't true...
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