Aliases, creeping, and wall cleaning: Understanding privacy in the age of Facebook

TLDR: This paper explores how 20-something Facebook users understand and navigate privacy concerns, and examines the somewhat subversive practices which users engaged in to enhance their own social privacy, and in some cases, violate that of others.

Abstract: This paper explores how 20-something Facebook users understand and navigate privacy concerns. Based on a year long ethnographic study in Toronto, Canada, this paper looks at how - contrary to many mainstream accounts - younger users do indeed care about protecting and controlling their personal information. However, their concerns revolve around what I call social privacy, rather than the more conventional institutional privacy. This paper also examines the somewhat subversive practices which users engaged in to enhance their own social privacy, and in some cases, violate that of others. Finally, this paper examines some of the reasons that users may continue using the site, despite privacy concerns.