Revise Annotation 1: Is privacy a social norm? Retorting upon the claim from Facebook founder

      As Johnson (2010) quoted Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, indicating that people nowadays tend to share themselves on the Internet, and privacy had to be evolved. Johnson (2010) argued that when Facebook decided to redefine the meaning of privacy, it changed the original goal of establishing a social network between the Ivy league, and also the function of building an “open” and “transparent” world.

Also, the author mentioned the launching of the “contentious advertising system”, which allowed advertisers to track Facebook users to search and collect potential buyers. Although this system made Facebook lose a large amount of money in its lawsuit, the business behind the system might bring more than people can imagine.

   Emphasizing that Facebook had revealed more and more functions for the public, it was not surprising to see some naïve users happened to do embarrassing things, only because they thought they launched information in private, which is actually reaching to the public.

Johnson (2010) claimed that the attitude of privacy in young people could be misunderstood. The sharing of young people doesn’t mean that they do care about strangers invading their private. Instead, they tend to share themselves on the Internet because they think they could have their own space without disturbance, especially when teenagers do not feel the secure of privacy in their rooms due to their parents. And Facebook offered this illusion. When they think that they create a private social circle and put everything on Facebook, they are actually exposing themselves to the craving advertising company.

The success of Facebook is established on users trust and reliance. When it starts to transform or even sell out user’s information to advertisement, only explaining that they are following world’s trend and breaking social norms, it cheats on the users and also betrays the original trust at first. Some online users even say that all we need is a new social network to embrace rather than exposing ourselves nakedly to others. 

Source:

Johnson, B. (2010). Privacy no longer a social norm, says Facebook founder. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-privacy