Facebook and Privacy Policy

Section I of the Facebook policy is titled “What kinds of information do we collect?”, which is a 600 word, eight paragraph description that details the information that the Facebook site mines about its users. The obvious ones are the profile information and any type of information shared, created, or messaged between users. This includes such things as photo tags and other devices that allow for the other users to actually provide Facebook mining programs with information about you. If you make a payment of some sort through Facebook, your financial information is also collected which includes “your credit or debit card number and other card information, and other account and authentication information, as well as billing, shipping and contact details.” Third party website visits are also collected. Some device information is also collected, such as ISP, IP address, and location services which can be edited through certain Facebook privacy settings (Facebook, 2016).

Part II or the Facebook policy, “How do we use this information,” provides another 500 words explaining in a large sense that the information is used for marketing products. The four major bullet points are listed below for brevity;

*Provide, improve and develop Services

*Communicate with you

*Show and measure ads and services

*Promote Safety and Security

(Facebook, 2016)

In 1971, John Rawls wrote the book A Theory of Justice, where he laid out his “Veil of Ignorance” philosophy. In that concept, in order to have the most “just” society, one must not be aware of one’s own position in the society, advantages or disadvantages, so as to not be biased for or against the political policies being constructed (Veil of ignorance, 2016).

Rawls’ theory is related to Age of Enlightenment concept of the social contract, where individuals must “consent” to surrender certain rights in order to reap the benefits of some “authority” that remains intact in order to offer protections against stakeholders stomping on the freedoms and rights of other stakeholders (Social contract, 2016).

The first three bullet points from the Facebook policy listed above, to me, are clearly commercial in nature; however, reaping the rewards of having certain products offered up that cater to your interest can be both an advantage and disadvantage. However, the last bullet – Safety and Security—appears to focus on an issue of serious breach of the social contract, where one may call upon the “authority” to intervene on the behalf of certain stakeholders who have had their freedoms and rights crushed.

In particular, Patterson and Wilkins Case 5-B specifically mentions the cases in 2012 where Facebook “augmented the power of its Family Safety Center” providing “new tools to report cyberbullying” (Patterson & Wilkins, 2016).

So in many ways, as the evolution of Facebook and its privacy policies continue to transform to meet the rigor of Web 2.0; we are in in a metaphoric veil of ignorance – as we venture into the ever evolving way in which social media has transformed privacy. Because as in Rawl’s theory, we are in many cases unaware, or ignorant, of how forfeiting some of our privacy rights will actually benefit or disadvantage us in the long run.

References

Facebook (2016) . Data Policy . September 29, 2016 . retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/full_data_use_policy

Patterson, P. & Wilkins, L. (2014) . Case 5-B: Facebook: Should You Opt Out or In?. Media Ethics: Issues & Cases . McGraw Hill . 2014

Social contract (2016) . Wipedia . 1 December 2016 . retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

Veil of ignorance (2016) . Wikipedia . 29 November 2016 . retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance