Proposal


 * Group Research Proposal:**

Facebook is a social networking tool, helping connect friends and family on a local and global scale. With its introduction by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, Facebook has revolutionized the way people communicate, and share information with one other. However, there is a negative side to Facebook; by allowing us to connect with anyone, anywhere brings up issues regarding privacy. By looking at the history of Facebook, events currently shaping the issue and its primary stakeholders form our group's opinion, and the basis for our communication strategy.

At Harvard University, a young man named Mark Zuckerberg was conducting a small project as one of his computer programming hobbies. His extensive research and financial aid from Eduardo Saverin (a co-founder of Facebook) led him to create a small social networking website that connected students from every dorm within Harvard. Before his creation, Zuckerberg had created other various social-networking websites such as Coursematch, and Facemash (Guardian). Coursematch allowed users to view people taking similar degrees, and Facemash, allowed users to rate people's attractiveness” (Guardian). This website was initially known as, “The Facebook.” Over time, the website expanded into other universities like Stanford and Yale (Mashable). With overwhelming increase of users, Zuckerberg decided to join two other students named Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes to help him direct his website.

Facebook made its global launch in February 2004, gathering over 8 million users in the United States of America alone, and expanding “worldwide to 7 other English-speaking countries, with more to follow” (Mashable). This made a huge impact for many users across these nations that brought competition to many other social networking websites such as MySpace. Facebook has become a social networking website that allows users to stay connected by updating their personal profiles, adding friends, and messaging them. People are able to share and upload pictures, videos, or blogs. From this point on, the social networking site took flight and became popular amongst young people. Currently there are “more than 400 million active users, as well as, 100 million that access it through a mobile device” (Facebook). The amount of users accessing Facebook through various mobile devices and computers indicates the presence of a global convergence. Facebook has become a social phenomenon where it is being constantly accessed across the globe. As a result, of a multitude of people using Facebook issues regarding privacy arise.

In early December 2009, Facebook changed its layout and settings to accommodate the backlash they were experiencing from their privacy settings. A notice was sent out to everyone with a Facebook account stating, “We're making some changes to give you more control of your information... at the same time we’re helping everyone find and connect with each other by keeping some information -like your name and profile picture- publicly available” (Skelton). By making your name, and profile picture publicly available was in the best interests of friends and family members trying to find their loved ones, sorting them out from the mass amount of names that come up in a search. However, in February 2010 Facebook changed the privacy settings yet again to include gender, geographic location, networks a user is associated with, who they are friends with, and pages they are a fan of as public information (Facebook). This caused further arguments because instead of limiting information accessible by the public, Facebook made more information available to the public. Currently, Facebook is still dealing around issues of privacy concerns, and how to further limit information accessible by strangers and other third parties. This can be achieved by giving users more control, and customization abilities in adjusting their privacy settings. In regards to deleting a Facebook account the reason being for content still existing on Facebook once an account is deleted, and remaining on servers is because the user must manually delete all content, such as wall posts, photos, videos, friends, and groups in order to longer exist on Facebook (Siyavash). Deleting that much information can be timely, so the user may choose not to delete their content. However, even if one did delete all their information off Facebook before removing their account, does not mean it does not exist any more. Some information remains on Facebook indefinitely (Aspan).

The primary stakeholders of concern for our research are all current and future users with a Facebook account, the ones who are uploading videos, pictures, and other information on a regular basis. This includes the group of people who have deactivated their accounts, as their content is never fully removed from Facebook's servers. More specifically, the stakeholders are the ones who disregard or are unaware of the user agreements and privacy policies they must abide by. They are the people who do not know where their information is going and who might have access to it. From their position, Facebook owners have too much control over the information they own, and that its misuse could violate intellectual property rights. Privacy is the main concern for users as the Facebook policy states, “We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile” (Facebook). Certainly, users should be at unease knowing that Facebook follows and creates a profile of them. We feel this is a serious concern for Facebook users as there have been many cases in the past where its privacy practices have caused serious criticism. Our stakeholders also include those who do not own a Facebook account, as there is always the chance of being linked through friends or family. For examples, people can be tagged in photos and videos, thus causing concerning since they have very little control over who sees it and where it might end up.

In addition, it is the users who we feel ultimately have the most power to protect their own privacy. Facebook is a company-operated business, and at the end of the day, their main priority is profit. Therefore, being proactive and looking out for yourself is the number one priority. We also have to take into consideration the Facebook organization. After all, they are the ones who are able to make the changes necessary to allow a more safe and secure environment for social networking. They are the ones who have the power to enhance privacy settings and change business practices to protect the confidentiality of its members the most. Facebook has came a long way since it first started, but as the number of participants continues to grow, Facebook will need to become more active in addressing privacy issues and control over data. Although, from their position, they are providing a service free of charge and they argue if you do not agree with their policies then you should not sign up. With the increasing number of people with an account, many feel that they will be left out and often sign up anyways.

By utilizing our current knowledge about privacy issues, we want people to be more aware of the implications social networking sites can have. Although it is one’s choice to post private information, it is very common for individuals to be ignorant of the “fine print.” For example, hidden deep in the privacy policy of Facebook, there is a section stating, “When you access Facebook from a computer, mobile phone, or other device, we may collect information from that device about your browser type, location, and IP address, as well as the pages you visit” (Facebook). This section is just one of many that infringes on the privacy of uninformed and naive users. Many social networking sites, and specifically Facebook, have instilled a system that makes it legal to collect, store and sell personal data of their users. Ultimately, we as consumers must consistently make conscious decisions about providing personal information to social networking companies, thus, protecting ourselves from having confidential information shared with others and accessible to people worldwide, without our knowledge.

As a group, we want to educate the public about the consequences and ways to protect themselves from falling into the trap, created by these social networking sites. Over the past few years, Facebook has gradually been storing information on its users. Essentially, they have the right to sell the gathered information to marketing and research companies. Not only is this information sold to companies all over the world, but also is accessible to anyone. In many incidents, people have been fired from their jobs due to the content on their Facebook profile. One example of this involves a teen named Kimberly Swann describing her first day at work being ‘dull and boring’ on her Facebook profile (Levy). It did not take much time, as soon after, her boss read the comment and fired her. However, some situations can be much worse, such as loosing a career, or denied access to a school due to unprofessional content. Although there are privacy features to help hide certain content, this does not mean it is hidden forever. If someone is photographed when intoxicated, that photo can be viewed on multiple profiles by friends who commented on the photo, even if you deny access to it from your profile. For example, searching an individuals name on Google will expose their profile picture and other personal information. If you do not want certain information and personal content to appear on the internet, you must stop it from the source and avoid situations that could incriminate you in the future.

Ideally, we would like our target audience to be more aware and vigilant of the content on their profiles and information they provide to websites, specifically Facebook. For some young adults, it may be hard to avoid the corresponding lifestyle of partying and alcoholic consumption; however, by urging users to avoid displaying themselves in an inappropriate and immature manner can benefit them. Since the domination of social networking sites, it has been evident that people, specifically females, have exposed themselves in a much less classier and degrading fashion. Seductive clothing and facial expressions that appear tasteless, all add to the same conclusion of unprofessionalism. If one has to question whether something they are posting is inappropriate, or the information they are providing is private and do not want it to be circulated, avoid the situation completely to reduce the chance of regret later on.

In conclusion, our plan is to engage a significantly large audience in hopes of informing them to be mindful of their privacy. Facebook and other social networking websites allow its users to connect with friends, family and even other people who the user may not know. Facebook allows anyone to view personal information about anyone, therefore our focus is on all Facebook users who may or may not know that this could be an infringement on intellectual property rights. We plan to reach out to our audience through various awareness posters and oral presentations to present the users with facts about the privacy issues that Facebook ignores. We will allow the audience to give feedback in relation to their own actual cases regarding the infringement on their privacy. This action will hopefully spread throughout all Facebook users and, in turn, allow them to be more conscience of Facebook’s recent actions to make more information considered as public information. By placing strict attention on the issues, we hope to instill awareness in the minds of our audience. One objective is to create a Facebook group asking Facebook to be more private, and have more than 10 million users join; which is a fraction of the over 400 million total users (Facebook). This will be enough to make headlines and spark a reaction from Mark Zuckerberg, and the Facebook team. This would be an easy way to keep measurement and an efficient one, since we are using Facebook to act against itself. There have been numerous examples of how people can form groups to petition for their rights, which gives our cause the possibility of working. Our tactics include verbally and visually presenting information that will persuade our audience to take action and join the group. We will use the advantage that Facebook offers of social networking to protest against their primitive privacy controls, in order to bring about awareness.

**Works Cited**

Aspan, Maria. “How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free.” //New York Times// (2008): n. pag. Web. 2 Mar 2010. .

Facebook. “Facebook’s Privacy Policy.” Facebook. 9 December 2009. //Facebook//, Web. 1 Mar 2010. .

Facebook. “Statistics.” Facebook. 2010. //Facebook//, Web. 1 Mar 2010. .

Levy, Andrew. “Teenage office worker sacked for moaning on Facebook about her 'totally boring' job.” //Mail Online// (2009): n. pag. Web. 2 Mar 2010. .

Phillips, Sarah. “A brief history of Facebook.” Guardian //News and Media Limited// (2008): n. pag. Web. 3 Mar 2010. .

Siyavash, G. “Corporate Facebook.” //Googlepages// (2007). Web. 2 Mar 2010. .

Skelton, Chad. “New Facebook privacy settings make your private photos public.”// Vancouver Sun //(2009): n. pag. Web. 1 Mar 2010. .

“The Complete Biography.”// Mashable. (2008): n. pag. Web. 3 Mar 2010. .