Escalas existentes de uso generalizado

This feature allows users to manage and display specific contents to specific audience. Lampinen et al., (2009) found that in Facebook people from one’s offline setting are present and this multiple group of people is present under one “friend” group which is known to the user. The existence of the different groups of friends, family and acquaintances is managed by use of grouping strategies designed by Facebook for privacy control.

One respondent (RP20) said that: “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 relatives’ friendship requests, so now they are all in my friend 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.” Another one (RP28) also grouped friends:

“I use grouping friends and change the visibility setting to protect me, but when Facebook changes the privacy setting, like what they did recently, it can change the content’s visibility to groups, I don’t think it fully protects privacy.” A further respondent (RP11) also stated: “There are some things that I just wouldn't share with all my friends, I have

grouped them based on how close our friendship is, but still I don't put any inappropriate photos as I do understand that there is a big wide world out there and once it's out there it is out of control.”

One respondent (RP20)restricted the profile: “My profile is restricted to friends only, I

think it is a stupid idea to have open to everyone privacy setting; I am also considering grouping people according to what I want to share with them.” So did this respondent (RP23): “My profile is limited to friends only, but I have divided them into some groups,

especially those people I personally haven’t met, but I know because they are my husband’s relatives who live in America. I have posted regularly photographs of some events and holidays on Facebook in the past.”

However, another participant (RP19) points out that “In Iran we use Facebook to explore

a space without limitation, but it's amazing how we manage to take all this limitation with ourselves to Facebook and then we use all these exhaustive privacy settings and grouping

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people according to their different characters, just to be there, sometimes I think I should delete my account and not worry in the online world as in the offline world but then I can’t imagine excluding myself from all the free fun and knowledge that goes around on Facebook.” Similarly, another participant (RP13) asked: “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?”

One unanticipated finding was that one participant talked about having two accounts to easily manage and control the audience and content. This participant suggests that tailoring content to the right people is only manageable with this strategy, as before, he had one account and he was not satisfied with the level of protection from privacy settings; he (RP29) stated that: “I used to have one account but now I have two accounts,

one for my Iranian friend network and one of my foreign friends network. To keep up with my foreign friends, I created a Facebook account for my foreign friends. In this way I can get conference news and connect with useful people in my field of interest, it is helpful for job searches too, this profile is more of my serious side, I don’t post personal and Iranian things here, I use the English language. On my other profile I am more relaxed and I use Farsi as all my network is Iranian.” These comments and observations show that attempts to use groups differ between participants. While observing participants’ use of group settings for privacy and audience control (see next chapter), it was evident that dividing friend lists into different groups such as family, friends, university friends and many more is a popular choice.

As several interviewees described, limited participation and information sharing is often based on privacy risk concerns and surveillance concerns, so it seems logical to assume that lurkers could begin to actively participate given the required privacy control tools and knowledge. One interviewee (RP20) also made an interesting point: “My profile is

restricted to friends only, I think it is a stupid idea to have an open to everyone privacy setting, I have grouped people according to what I want to share with them. I’m not sharing information with people who don’t share things in return or limited my access to their profiles, but I understand why everyone is so protective.” Participants talk about choosing limited participation and lurking, for example, deciding not to comment on others’ activities, not to share personal photos and ideas as a way to avoid privacy risks.

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4.6.2 “Public” privacy setting

Interestingly, the respondents RP6 and RP21 reported that they had an open privacy setting. By being open, they meant their privacy settings were set to public as this is the default setting in the software. One of the participants (RP6) was living and working in the UK. However, it is interesting that he refers to being open as the best strategy and at the same time he talks about selecting content before sharing; this indicates that this participant applies a type of censorship and monitors his ideas before sharing them on Facebook.

This participant (RP6) refers to combining being a “lurker” and self-censorship as his strategy to control privacy: “My profile is open to all, it is like saying: here I am and if

you want to contact me feel free to do so. It is not restricted at all as there is nothing bad. I very rarely update Facebook.” Similarly, the other participant (RP21) suggested: “My profile is viewable to public, I just don’t share things that I won’t shout out from the balcony, you know what I mean. I am usually watching others’ activities and posts and if someone tags me on a photo or anything else I untag it; this is the best policy for me.”