Fase 1: Análisis inicial

Textual descriptions are a way of self-presentation and on Facebook it is displayed through status updates, comments and “About me” features, where the profile user is able to display personal ideas, feeling and thoughts to the audience. The privacy settings enable the user to take control of the visibility of all textual and non-textual content, therefore depending on the nature of self-presentation, users apply the setting. In the “About me” feature RP13, RP20, RP21 had written one or two short sentences and the other participants (RP7, RP8, RP10, RP22, RP27, RP28, and RP6) had chosen to leave this section blank.

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In addition, only two of the participants, who had previously stated that their profiles were set to Public and who displayed content in the “About me” section, were recorded during observation as:

(Rp20) - “ I am a fun person, love to live life and am interested in reading, swimming, listening to music, movies, etc.”.

(RP21) - written in Farsi and translated as: “I am who I am and this space is too small to describe me”.

Occasional “Status update” visibility was evident from RP10’s profile. This participant displayed his profile picture, phone number, e-mail address, education history, and place of residence. From observing this profile one can see that RP10 displays a mix of professional and personal information on Facebook, and is “Friends” with colleagues, family and friends. His “News Feed” shows photographs of past holidays, alongside his status updates. During interviews he expressed concerns about disclosing information and possible security risks, stating, “I don’t update that often and I think I'm slightly selective and conservative with what I share”. However, observation data shows that he has displayed status updates and pictures in the past with “Public” privacy settings. The researcher has identified these sections and informed the participant. The participant demonstrated how he applied the “Custom” setting for visibility of the “Friend list” and seemed to be knowledgeable about the technical privacy settings. The display of some content to a public audience contradicts this participant’s statements given in interviews as he suggested: “there are possible privacy risks” but it may be that this participant benefited from the occasional public display of content for self-presentation goals. Photos

Most of the photos on display were group pictures, with family members, and those of secondary sources such as online magazines. During the profile observation, it was clear that the use of pictures for expressing ideas and presenting activities was evident, however, some of the pictures shared were from secondary sources and the profile user had no input in the production of it. Profile pictures varied among participants: a photo of the profile user, a couple, a blank profile picture, an avatar or an object, or a group of people. The participants chose to either not to show their faces at all or to show their faces along with the faces of others in their profile picture, thus representing the struggle to

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protect privacy and to overcome the two social representations that one (female participants to be precise) has in Iran. According to Islamic rules, women in Iran are expected to cover up in public spaces, and it is forbidden to appear in public without the Islamic veil. However, in family and private settings they are not expected to follow this rule, and one behaves as one desires. However, Facebook allows one representation in the form of a profile picture as a public representative. This finding may be explained by the fact that one social representation in Iran is not practised, and society and the way the backstage setting in Goffmanian terms is formed in Iran encourages Facebook users to use strategies for hiding their faces. This finding has important implications for developing a more private setting for users from societies like Iran as Facebook aims to have one social representative in offline and online settings according to its founder Mark Zuckerberg, but with current privacy settings, Iranian users are encouraged to present the public side of themselves as measures of security.

Participants demonstrated how they have deleted content they posted in the past, which they do not want to be visible on Facebook anymore. For example, un-tagging photos and changing the privacy of past posts was observed. Apart from controlling from the user side, participants acknowledged that in the past, they have asked Friends and others to remove posts they may have shared about the participant and they wish to be removed from the site.

Work/Education

Some of the issues emerging from this finding relate specifically to the fact that Facebook is not an anonymous online space, rather, the participants in this study employed strategies to change the intention of the site developers from an open and public environment to one that meets their needs. For example, Facebook provides a feature where users can list their education and work history, it aids users in finding peers for future networking and maintaining connections with past peers. Based on interviews, participants living in Iran have reported that they chose not to include work history in order to avoid surveillance and security problems that would come from employers and government authorities. Similarly, participants living in the UK chose not to disclose work-related information, with the exception of the case of RP6. However, the majority of participants reported that they chose to disclose their education history. These findings suggest that academic and education values are important and meaningful among

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participants or they believe there is no harm in disclosing academic achievements to a public audience.

The selves presented on Facebook might satisfy the profile users’ needs, but at the same time technology helps to portray aspects of one’s personal life that might appear unconventional and they might not display in offline public settings. For example, RP27 has created an account to use with his wife, similarly RP8 uses a joint account with her husband. This suggests that sharing online space can be linked to the control and trust- related issues among Iranian couples.

Surveillance

Findings from interviews suggested that participants control the visibility of their content for the fear of being watched by Irans internet surveillance police (FATA). The second surveillance, fear was referred to family members and those with close ties in offline settings. Participants identified ‘Friend list grouping’ as an affective and management strategy to control surveillance from family members. However, to control surveillance treats from authorities, a number of strategies such as using first names, not posting profile photos, and control of privacy settings were suggested. Participants, however, maintained a degree of self-censorship as a more effective mechanism to prevent most surveillance fears.

Participants reported surveillance-related activity for themselves and other users during interviews. This activity was described mainly as going through another person's photo or searching for the Friend’s network of contacts. The present findings seem to be consistent with other research which surveillance and information seeking from peers and Friends on Facebook is a form of “social curiosity” (Brandtzæg et al., 2010). These findings further support the idea of Ellison et al., (2011) as in order to gain social capital participants engage in surveillance and information seeking from peers.

Surveillance spelling cost from the audience might differ between different users depending on the displayed content. Public display of a relationship status out of wedlock seems to be rare by Iranian Facebook users. For example, only RP20 has her boyfriend as a Facebook Friend and nobody shares an interest in a same-sex relationship. Yet, based on interview data, fifteen participants claimed to be in a relationship in offline settings. One of the issues that emerges from these findings is that under the ‘‘looking for” feature,

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participants either selected ‘‘Friendship” or they had not selected the option. This seems to suggest that the participants chose not to display their sexual relationship status, as it is defined by many in Iran as abnormal, despite the fact that Internet users in Iran have a location for connecting with the opposite sex freely in online settings. The fact that these participants chose not to disclose their sexual relationships suggests the presence of similar social pressures that exist in offline settings, and a degree of self-censorship on Facebook is needed to protect one’s privacy. In contrast, socially recognised sexual relationships were openly displayed on Facebook. Participants who specified their sexual relationship status, all claimed to be married. This portrayal of commitment in a traditional marital context is in line with the traditional expectations of offline settings for opposite sex connections in the Islamic conservative society of Iran.

Users cannot control people from finding them with privacy settings. People can find others when they search for content they have access to view, for example, a photo or other content in which a user has been tagged. All cover photos are public. This means that anyone who visits a profile page will be able to see their cover photo and the comments and Likes for that post. This violates the user’s attempt to customise the “Friend list” visibility. RP28’s privacy setting for visibility was “Friends” only and displayed her date of birth, profile picture, e-mail address, mobile number, likes and dislikes for movies/books/fashion, school and university details, gender, relationship status and religion to this targeted audience. The participant has access to Facebook from her Smartphone and tablet and she connects to Facebook with the help of a VPN.

This participant (RP28) updates her status regularly, talking about a variety of things from offline settings such as photos of lunch and other food. The visibility of “Status updates” were set to “Custom” suggesting that personal thoughts and activity announcements were targeted to a certain group purposefully. During the interview, she (RP28) suggested that she is very conscious of how people perceive her online and she is careful about what her friends, family and people who don’t know her will think about her posts. During the profile observation, the researcher did not detect any evidence of hiding information from a certain group of friends as the participant’s privacy settings for “Friends list” visibility was set to “Friends” only, meaning she had restricted the public from viewing the profile content and her Friends list members had the same access to information. The participant demonstrated a knowledge of technical privacy settings and the visibility of content on

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Facebook, but her posts’ visibility on Facebook were based on a deliberate decision. This participant’s Friends list consists of different male friends and as she stated during the interview that she finds Facebook particularly useful for keeping in touch with male friends from university, (quoting from interview transcripts) she said: “in Iran we have some trouble having relationships with boys at university, work and other public spaces, but Facebook is a relatively free space for communicating with men. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that, but our society, culture and also government don't approve of that”. It was evident that she posts a variety of content, from her own pictures to secondary information such as posts from “YouTube” and other websites. The privacy settings for shared content varied from “Friends only” settings to “Public” settings, depending on the type of content, suggesting that the participant is in control of her audience and voluntarily displays certain content to targeted audience.

This participant (RP22) uses a pseudonym for a profile name. RP22 said “I consider what my friends would think when I upload content”, but this same consideration was not given to strangers or hidden audience. From observation of her Facebook page, the researcher can see that her updates were about her personal time; her Timeline was full of all parts of her life. Privacy settings on Status updates is “Friends only”. During interviews she has suggested that “I would not communicate anything terrible that had happened to my

friends/family on Facebook or post something that questions my reputation in the community”. This statement suggests that the participant is applying self-censorship as well as the “Friends only” privacy setting to control visibility of content to the audience. The application of settings in this profile demonstrates a skillfull and knowledgeable user, however, she added that it was necessary for her to learn about the privacy settings functionality as she gets Friend requests from extended family members. She suggested that deleting and rejecting such requests might question her reputation, as she stated:

“rejecting a Friend Request can be bad, you know, they will think something is going on there and she is hiding something or she is up to no good on Facebook, something is wrong with our culture, everyone wants to know everything”.

An observation of updates and posts showed that RP28 mostly shared happy photographs of events or holidays and commented on other people’s posts. It seems she displayed a positive space with a set of standards to keep control of the content. Different privacy settings were applied to shared content. For example, RP28 sets up several Friends

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groups from her “Friends list”. This practice suggests that the user actively manage and control self-presentation by targeting different audience, according to her social desires and relationships. Importantly, these two examples represent a situation in which an individual’s goals for self-presentation are in tension with privacy concerns, hence, the application of different privacy strategies. They have limited unknown and known audience’s visibility to their content by grouping the ‘Friend list’ and displaying information to that particular group. To address their privacy concerns, they have used different languages alongside the application of ‘Custom’ privacy settings.