This is my favourite web 2.0 question of late: How do you feel about twitter privacy settings? More importantly, would you recommend that new users protect their status updates? I ask the question to everyone I can, whenever possible. It’s a question I’ve struggled with for months now. As a privacy advocate, I believe strongly that each user needs to be an active participant with his or her personal information, especially online. When it comes to tools like facebook and flickr, I advise particular caution, suggesting that users think carefully about which pictures and comments you post, and which images you allowed to be tagged. Privacy is certainly important on facebook: I think it is important that everyone turn facebook privacy settings on to ensure that the endless amount of personal information available is at least contained to your “friends” and not the ENTIRE 110 million active facebook users. The same is true for personal websites, blogs, photo accounts and posting on forums.
But twitter is different, isn’t it?
First of all, if you want to participate in open discussions or be included in a hashtag feed, you have to turn OFF protected updates. This means that if you want to protect your data you won’t be seen at all in the ever popular feeds (the equivalent of an online group or message board). Not being included in feeds is particularly challenging when attending social media-related seminars, as I did last week. The moderator of the seminar panel announced that he would read questions from the session’s hashtag feed. Well, of course I want to participate and ask questions, but if I was going to, I had to quickly unprotect my updates. You might also lose the opportunity to grow your list of followers- if you’re tweets are protected, odds are many users won’t follow you, or will think really carefully before following you back. Also, the large majority of twitter users have privacy settings turned off, suggesting if you’re going to be part of the community, then you shouldn’t be locked down. These three points make it extremely difficult to promote twitter privacy settings.
So now I’m at a bit of a loss with my own twitter “success”. I’ve had many users tell me they didn’t follow me back because they couldn’t be sure I was a real person, and that I didn’t give them the chance to see if my tweets are worth following. These arguments are completely valid in a world of mass spamming. However, if you want a respected colleague to follow you back (essential if you want to Direct Message them), then you’re likely to do all you can to facilitate a follow-back, which means being “wide open”.
I had a conversation with one of the session’s panel members last week, and his argument was essentially that it’s important to pay attention to how you use the tool, instead of simply relying on the software’s privacy settings. He also suggested that someone concerned about privacy could create mulitple accounts, a a personal (and private) profile for friends and family, and an open profile for the rest of us. It is certainly true that relying on the tool to keep your information secure is a mistake.
After all, facebook, even if you have privacy settings turned on, if you have 5000 friends, your information is NOT really secure, is it? There is also the argument that twitter is the same as a blog - what’s the point of participating if you don’t want people to read? I agree with these points, which is why I sometimes unprotect my twitter updates, but I inherently want to keep my information protected! Maybe I just carry a high level of paranoia with my social media usage?
My case for privacy settings on:
One reason why “think before you post” is problematic is that it’s hard not to slip up. Being an active social media user on multiple platforms, I see many mini-conversations happen all the time. It’s so easy to ask your online community for restaurant recommendations, mention your local traffic or weather status, or complain about your neighbour or local coffee shop. I personally feel much better knowing that if I have my updates protected, that I at least have some control over who is reading this information. I’m not worried about the people I know, or even the vast majority of twitter users from seeing my information, but it’s the unknown web surfer (the non-tweeter who simply googled my name or surfed the twitter public feed) and found my profile just by clicking a link. When I start allowing this fear to creep in, I start to question the level of risk and the real dangers that could become from twitter posts. I can manage these fears by establishing a personal rule not to publish my specific whereabouts or too much about my home location, but what does this all mean for advocating twitter privacy settings?
For me, it means the social community environment is shifting, so having an online privacy message can’t be as simple as “turn on all privacy options”. Instead, you have to carefully think about each tool and how you use it and what information you’re willing to publically release. I’m still a little concerned about twitter and its open environment, so I think I will continue to use my protected updates option at times. After all, I want lots of people to read my blog posts and comment on my ideas, but not everyone needs to know what I made for dinner last night, right? It may be that I eventually become another “non-protected” twitter user, but I will also become a much different type of poster then, and possibly less frequent.
I’m very curious what others think about twitter privacy settings. If the environment is meant to be open and collaborative, is it worth it to offer a twitter privacy option at all?
Twitter, Web 2.0
Online Privacy, Question, Twitter, Web 2.0
