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Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck

Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence

Harvard University and University of California-Berkeley, USA, dmb{at}ischool.berkeley.edu

Not all Facebook users appreciated the September 2006 launch of the `News Feeds' feature. Concerned about privacy implications, thousands of users vocalized their discontent through the site itself, forcing the company to implement privacy tools. This essay examines the privacy concerns voiced following these events. Because the data made easily visible were already accessible with effort, what disturbed people was primarily the sense of exposure and invasion. In essence, the `privacy trainwreck' that people experienced was the cost of social convergence.

Key Words: convergence • exposure • Facebook • invasion • privacy • social network sites

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