Discussions of social media platforms and their impact on communication, collaboration, sociability, privacy, and norms of information flow.
Fred Stutzman has an excellent post on the recent Facebook terms of service kerfuffle, including his prescription for what Facebook must do to properly address user rights: First, Facebook should place a reasonable lifespan (eighteen to twenty-four months) on information…
Read More Stutzman’s Suggestions for Facebook to Properly Address User Rights
Amid increasing criticism regarding modifications to its terms of service, Facebook has withdrawn the changes it implemented on February 4, 2009. Mark Zuckerberg posted a message explaining this move, and FB also released a set of "Facebook Bill of Rights…
Now that the NY Times has picked up the story about Facebook changing their terms of service, effecitvely removing mention that the license users grant Facebook to use their content expires if users remove said content, Facebook has issued a…
Read More On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information (Except When Facebook Does)
The terms of service (TOS) for most websites featuring user-generated content share a common language regarding the license granted to those sites when a user uploads content. YouTube, MySpace, and Flickr, for example, all state (with some wordsmithing) that when…
Read More Facebook’s New Content License Extends Beyond Closure of Account
Here's an interesting story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noting that some Marquette University sororities are requiring their pledges keep off of Facebook until the rush is over. There seems to be two possible reasons for the Facebook blackout. One,…
Read More University Sororities Banning Facebook during Rush
The NY Times reports that when you subscribe to a channel on YouTube, the Google-owned video sharing site publicly broadcasts this fact by putting your user information on that channel's page for anyone to see: Google’s video site lets you…
Read More YouTube: “Broadcast Yourself” means broadcasting your viewing interests for all to see
Following up on my earlier exploration of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's goal of "getting people to want to put up their full name, a real picture, mobile phone number" and other personal information on his website, GQ magazine has published…
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed at the Web 2.0 Summit, and he revealed few key insights into his attitude towards the fact Facebook has spurred an increase in personal information flows online. In short -- and in line with…
Read More Facebook’s Zuckerberg on Increasing the Streams of Personal Information Online
I recently had the pleasure and priviledge of joining Nancy Baym of the University of Kansas School of Communication Studies as a guest on Kansas City public radio's daily current events show, "Up To Date". The show's topic was social…
Read More KCUR Podcast: Social Networking Sites – How they Work, Privacy and Safety
danah boyd illuminates an interesting privacy loophole in how Facebook allows users to view others' photos. As she describes it: A few days ago, Gilad's eyes opened wide and he called me over to look at his computer. He was…
Read More Putting Privacy Settings in the Context of Use (danah boyd)
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