Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents (DICA-IV)

RP7’s main reasons for using Facebook were “to see what is new with friends and what they have been up to, also to catch up with friends and family from home” (referring to Iran). His privacy setting for the “Friend list” visibility is “Friends only”. The privacy setting for content visibility is “Custom”. During demonstrations of the profile it was noticed that this participant had uploaded several profile picture since he joined Facebook, the visibility of the profile photo album was set to “Public”, therefore, by clicking on the profile picture any unknown audience could view his past photos including comments and Likes from friends. This feature discloses Friends’ profiles to the public against RP7’s wish, who had previously attempted to restrict his Friend list visibility to the Public. The researcher explained the visibility violation to the participant and advised him on ways to prevent the unwanted disclosure.

For (RP20) control over “Friends list” visibility and content visibility is very important as any information disclosure about her personal life might damage her reputation among her extended family members, who happen to be on her “Friends list”. She stated: “I have my boyfriend and also some male friends on Facebook who keep writing to me and tagging me in pictures, I couldn’t reject my extended relatives friendship requests, so now they are all on my Friends list as well as my boyfriend, the only way to keep them from knowing this and my private life is to restrict their access to all my content by grouping the Friends list, if I don’t like something on Wall posts I will delete it”. This participant’s “Friend list” visibility is set to “Only Me” (RP20). The privacy setting for shared content on the profile is visible to “Friends”. The participant also enabled “Timeline Review”. This feature updates the user so that whenever someone posts on her “Wall” or tags her, she gets a notification from Facebook asking if she wants to display it on her “Timeline” or remove it. However, the content hidden from the audience through the Timeline review setting is available on the Timeline of those who post it in their “News Feed” and search. This participant (RP20) used “Custom” privacy setting to control visibility of the content posted to her “Wall”. During observation, it was evident that she posts content in the hope

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of targeting a specific group. The participant (RP20) used Farsi characters to display her profile name, the First Name split into two parts, my profile name is in Farsi, this user presents a creative way to protect her privacy and offline identity on Facebook by not providing a full name (surname) [for example Ate-as first name and Feh- as a surname, researcher suggests].

Another participant (RP13) uses Farsi language characters to display profile name. During interviews she suggested this was a mechanism to hide her profile page from co- workers in the UK to spare them the embarrassment of her rejecting their friendship request. This user (RP13) also commented:“ I have rules for what to share and what not to share, I am also aware that I have a variety of friends with different understandings of the things I might post so I am careful with what I share”. This statement indicates that the user applies self-censorship and a second strategy to manage audience and content. However, during profile demonstration it was noted that the participant developed a customised settings, so that each post is either visible to “Friends only” or the visibility is “Custom”. She has divided her “Friends list” into groups (family, Iran friends, England friends, male friends, university) and each group has access to view her Wall postings according to her choice. It was noticed that the participant “blocked” visibility of her profile from several individuals. She has suggested that her Friends don’t comment and like the sensitive content she posts for fear of being associated with her opinion and postings. It is important to bear in mind the possible bias in this self-report statement. However, in observing her posts, it was evident that she actively posts secondary sourced content such as videos, photos and articles about violence against women and children in Iran. During the observation period, it was noted that she shared up to ten different pieces of multimedia content in one day. The content’s visibility settings was a mixture of “Custom” and “Public”. It seems possible that the non-participation from her Friends list was due to the privacy settings of the shared content. Furthermore, it was noted that this participant applies privacy settings to selected content visibility, for example, the “Friends list” visibility was set to “Only Me”. During the interview she suggested that grouping “Friends list” is not something she would consider, she said: “what if people find out about this, I think Facebook’s feature for grouping and filtering is so embarrassing, it’s like you invite people to your home and offer drink to some and ignore the rest, why do you invite them in the first place?” During observation it was evident that this participant is true to her word, the filtering of her information to others were

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based of known and unknown separation of audience. From the observation of the content visible in the profile, it was evident that she is not using the “Grouping” feature. Instead, she set visibility to either only “Friends list” or “Public”. This participant demonstrated a good knowledge of the application of privacy settings, therefore visibility of certain content to the public might be interpreted as voluntary and the personal choice to portray a certain self-presentation goal.

From the observation of (RP8) at first glance, it was evident that she is hiding herself online behind her spouse. This participant (RP8) used her husband’s profile with a profile photo of both of them as a couple. She has explained during the interview that (RP8) “I shut my personal one down and use my husband’s page because I travel to Iran regularly and anyway we have many joint friends”. This meant that officially she has befriended people that she is not acquainted with from offline settings. To control the “Friends list”, she has “Custom” setting and the “Friends list” is divided into groups. This allows her to control posted content visibility to different groups of audience. However, this profile demonstrated a more relaxed approach towards controlling content. During the interview, RP8 expressed the belief that “I am conservative and careful about content sharing and

I select my posts”. The element of self-censorship is evident from this statement and explains why the privacy settings of some secondary sourced content as set to “Public” view.