Closed Social Networks: Who can see my Facebook or Friendster? October 1, 2008
Posted by ramfelsean in Seminar.trackback
Closed Social Networks Seminar presented by : Alvin and RamfelSean
Suggested Readings
Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship
by Danah M. Boyd and Nicolle B. Ellison
Slap in the Facebook: It’s Time for the Social Networks to Open UP
by: Scott Gilbertson
Why you should beware of Facebook
from http://www.theage.com.au
posted January 20, 2008
The phrase “no Man (and woman) is an island” never looked more applicable than now. Looking at the popularity of Social Networking Sites (SNS) these days, it seems that some things never change despite centuries of evolution. If the deductions are right, people living in ‘virtual worlds’ today share a similar instinct with their earlier counterpart – the quest for company. The main difference is that people today have a myriad of “tools” assisting and encouraging them to get connected. From the numbers, many people have already given in to their instincts! Of course, there are exceptions. Anti-SNS advocates have existed for as long as the sites have been created. So, just what are SNS? Taking a step further, what are “closed social networks”?
As the Internet proliferated, people found ways of sharing common interests and interact with other like-minded people through SNS (such as MySpace, Friendster, etc). Looking at it on a global scale, that meant potentially millions of people (which is already happening) communicating with one another on a variety of topics as wide as the Internet could hold. Now, take a step back and look at that from an information-sharing point of view. Imagine the reach your message(s) can have with the number of people converging on a particular point in cyberspace.
But wait a minute, there is no guarantee that you can actually reach out to this “online audience” at all. Some networks are ‘closed networks’, which mean access is only for members (not that it’s very difficult to get anyway). Having said that, even if you do gain access to the network, you still may not get to “connect” with everyone else on it. That is because some, if fact many, profiles are usually set to ‘private’ (only a select few can view). Nevertheless, you may still drop a note if you wish.
While browsing through this week’s readings, keep in mind the following issues:
What role(s) does social network sites play in “connecting people”? What potential do you think social network sites hold for the future of inter-personal communication?
Do you think Social Networks should be ‘closed’ (only accessible to members) or ‘open’ (accessible to all)? Do ‘closed’ social networks serve their intended purpose?
Does the collection of information by Social Network Sites (such as Facebook) bother you? Do you think the laws in Australia (or in your home country) are sufficiently designed to apply to Social Network Sites (i.e. in terms of privacy issues, protection of information, defamation, etc)?
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okie… I know this topic hasn’t been discussed during seminar yet… But I just came across this article on the online version of the Straits Times on the issue of placing too much information on one’s online profile. So, before I forget the link: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_285377.html
It’s worth a look…
The social sites that we have been talking about during the discussion are revelations on how we interact with people, friends or not online. I would like to thank the class and tama for actively making the conversation interesting enough. The social sites that continue to flourish both have its pros and cons, pros that it enable friends to connect and keep in touch with us. I love it when friends that never been seen since high school are there to say hi. The cons of these social sites are it can be use to blackmail you in anyway, privacy curtailment or identity thief. The best way to fight the cons is just to be careful and cautious on what we post and I am starting to be cautious but still enjoying to be happy with my friendster day by day!
Thanks for a great seminar Alvin and Ramfel, it was a really interesting topic. As we discussed in the seminar, the concept of ‘friend’ is very blurry on social networking sites. Maybe there could be two categories of ‘friends’; ‘friends’ as in REAL friends (for people I have actually seen in the last 12 months); and ‘contacts’ (for people like Peter who I have seen since grade 5).
Then we’d have modified access to ‘contacts’ so they would have limited info available to them.
The problem with this is that peoples’ feelings might be hurt in the classificatory process….I know I would be pretty ruthless!
What do you guys think?
hi guys, thank you for giving us such a good topics this week. Because of this topic, before this week, I just set up my iown facebook in internet, even though I am four years later than Mark Zuckerberg who had set up his facebook , and I really enjoy it now.
In fact , I totally agree with Anna’s opinion about definitions of friends in facebook. She refers to two meanings of friends. One meaning is ‘real close friend’, and the other meaning is ‘contacts’. yes, I know a guy who has 150 friends in his facebook. But i do not think he will keep touch every friend in his facebook, and most of them are just their contacts. So for me, I am new menbership in facebook, now I just add my close friends in my facebook. it is not ruthless, I think it is just a personal opinion.
Hi Siyang! you are absolutely right with your opinion. Facebook, myspace or friendster are tools that we can have contact with our friends both we met personally and have not met for quite sometime. These social sites can also be a meeting place where we can have online friends, these online friends are evidently strangers but because of the concept of web 2.0 where we can interact with people online it changes the new concept of friendship defining the virtual friends from personal friends that we have. That would be the difference of the definition of “friends” when we are talking about social sites.
Well, I get a sense that the general sentiments hover around the idea of having 2 separate lists of people – ‘REAL friends’ & ‘okie-i-met-u-once-so-for-the-sake-of-that’ friends? I must say I personally agree on this concept. Though after thinking about it, I believe this phenomena stems from our wanting to feel wanted? I was just thinking how I’d have felt if I had set up a profile, then waited and waited but nobody sent an invitation to ‘add’. Or everyone whom I’ve sent invitations to rejected them? Haha. Ok, I know it’s not so funny if I were him/her.
Well, I guess it comes down to the main purpose of why the profile has been set up in the first place. If it’s to socialise, let the whole world know what you’re up to (basically saying: look, I’ve got such an exciting life, envy me!), then by all means add everyone. But if it’s to keep in touch with close friends, then prudent approval of invitations would be preferred.
One point, which I agree, which was mentioned during the discussion was the potential danger that “self-exclamations” can bring about? i.e. I’m off to see the world next week!
The sentence by itself probably wouldn’t cause much harm. But a determined person with malice intent could easily browse around and find out (from a profile of you from somewhere else) that you lived alone, address, workplace, etc. Together, these information could form a rough picture of your activities.
I remember an example of a famous con-person (I can’t remember his name, but I watched the episode on Discovery Channel) in history. This con-person would approach strangers in bars and chat them up. He’d ask his targets questions in such a manner that the questions wouldn’t seem very important when asked separately:
Con-man: do you have a dog
Target: Yes, it’s called Spots
Con-man: Wow that’s nice, I have a dog too and it shares the same name as my mother’s maiden name! Does yours do?
Target: Nope. Haha. My mother’s maiden name is xxx.
Con-man: Oh I see… Hey, it’s my birthday today! Lemme buy u a drink. When is yours?
Target: Well, happy birthday! Mine’s on xxxxx.
And so on…. Then the con-person would call the bank (whom he knows the target has an account) and request for a supplementary card to be issued in his own name. Guess what the bank would ask for confirmation of identity? U guessed it. The information that was provided in the conversation earlier!
Sorry for the long post. I’m just saying that the little ‘droplets’ of information that we leave lying around in cyberspace could be pieced together to form a reasonable picture of us.
Today, I just log in my facebook, I found that it is very interest in that. you can add some friends by your friends in your facebook under your friend list. so it says , they are your same friends. But you shoulld still wait for people admit you as their friends. That is good.
Yes, indeed, Like ramfelsean saying, we explore the conception of ‘friends’ in the internet. because like your saying, we need some friends and strangers in our life. And friends are not meaning as close friends in internet, so this enlarges the meaning of friends on line.
Well Im sitting here not knowing what to write.
I thought that the seminar was really good last week and that we got around talking about most aspects on the subject which makes it hard to comment on anything without repeatting what we spoke about in the seminar…
I agree with Anna and the rest of you discussing the option of deviding your “friends” into two groups on facebook (or any other social network site) If I had been given the option to put Peter from 5 grade into a separate box, where I could decide what few details I would let him see, I might have done that instead of deleting him all together.
It can seem pointless though. If someone added me on facebook and all I could see of the persons profile was his name, age and profile picture, there wouldn´t be much for me to use the profile for and also I would get the felling that this person didn´t really wanted to be friends with me. Is it not better just to cut the line andnot be “friends” at all?
I agree Benedikte, there really isn’t that much point to the ‘contact’ classification. You’re really saying that you don’t want them to know anything about you, so why bother listing them at all. I suppose some people get a kick out of having lots of ‘friends/contacts’. It’s a numbers game for them rather than any signficant emotional attachment.
I second that Benedikte. I thought those topics during the seminar were well covered so much so that more comments will be just a repetition. However I do find the idea of network security a topic which we didn’t have much of a discussion on until the posts here.
I think one point made by Alvin’s last post was a really good one. We had always been warned not to give out bank or credit card details on the internet. But what we tend to be less wary of are those given in the con-man example. I thought that was definitely a classic case.
But a good point of reference is the classification of the term ‘friends’.
And unless we go around disclosing to these ‘friends’ how they are being classified in the facebook account, nobody is going to be hurt!
As our tutor had pointed during the seminar that when some news or information are being shared via personal emails, they should get respones via the same channel. Those who just throw the news back at everybody’s face publicly are being insensitive.
My final thought on this week’s topic is social networking on the internet is a personal choice. How we choose to disclose and present ourselves involves a certain level of risk and self confidence. At the end of the day there is still the regular methods of face to face meetings or social gatherings.
Talking about social network site, I remember my experience in the career week in Uni. In presentation of one of the companies, they said that it’s very common the Human Resources Department of the companies will goolge the profile of their future employee before company hire them. Since almost all the people sign up in social network (especially the young generation or uni graduate nowadays), the employer usually will find the information that they looking for from that site. And the information they found, will pretty much affect their assessment.
What I’m trying to say here is that social network site can go beyond contacting friends or meet old friend (although this is also the important function). It also can be a source of information when other people want to know who you are. Maybe this is one of the good reasons to share the profile publicly, instead of keeping it private.
Yes Rouli,
I’ve heard of that practice by HR personnel. In fact, I’ve even heard (yeah, just “heard”) of candidates being rejected for certain positions after the review of their SNS profiles when they were initially shortlisted.
So…well, I guess those cheeky drunk photographs of that last party you had should be quickly taken down. But then again, it seems that for some SNS websites, profiles and pictures cannot be viewed unless the person has been added as a ‘friend’. I noticed that Friendster allows a stranger to view the profile and photographs as long as the user does not set any restrictions while Facebook by default does not allow any browsing of profile unless the stranger has been added as a ‘friend’.
Hi guys, I got the same confusion with one very famous person, I could not remember his name, but a saying mean that is I do not sure that are we changing the world? Or is the world changing us? When everything arks for “Copyright”, our lives are full of “Log in” and “Password”. Maybe we should think about the question, is the digital communication convenient us to keep in touch with friends or isolate everyone far from the real world in some how? We all have experience about modern technology, for we growth up with them accompany. Is that true we live in a “Closed Social Networks”, it is impossible to access to anyone until you got permission? Do you guys like that? For myself, I hate to have a conversation in front of the stupid laptop screen rather than face to face talking, conversely, I even can not live without this kind of communication. It is such ironic!
Well Yan Man,
I agree that on line communication is part of our daily life and it is inevitable. Just like our discussion in other unit, that database is a new cultural form where we live now. Just like other development of technologies, it will open the new possibilities for us, but in the same time it’s also somehow close some other possibilities. I think the best approach for this condition is, try to get the full benefit of it, and always aware of the downside and learn how to overcome it.