Revenge of the User: Lessons from Creator/User Battles
Revenge of the User: Lessons from Creator/User Battles
This is a transcript of a 2004 talk given by the delightfully lucid danah boyd regarding the difference between what the creators of online social networks think they are creating and what actually evolves.
One of her points is that people (in the real world) interact with other people in their social network within a well-defined context or focus. Your one group of friends like jazz, your other group of friends like snowboarding, and a third group might be co-workers. How you interact with these different groups tends to be distinct and it is critical to control the flow of information amongst these groups. Online social networks destroy that. Everyone in your network can see everyone else, everyone in one group can see the profiles of those in another group… and apply their conclusions upon you – guilt by association.
Here’s an idea – create a social network with very specific privacy options. Allow people to apply group tags to their friends, then specific which pieces of information are visible to which groups. Don’t want your students reading that you like to get wasted on weekends? Only share that with your friends tagged “drinking buddies”.
Prediction: Granular privacy is going to be important in 2007.