Rebecca Balebako

The post that wasn't: exploring self-censorship on facebook

Social networking site users must decide what content to share and with whom. Many social networks, including Facebook, provide tools that allow users to selectively share content or block people from viewing content. However, sometimes instead of targeting a particular audience, users will self-censor, or choose not to share. We report the results from an 18-participant user study designed to explore self-censorship behavior as well as the subset of unshared content participants would have potentially shared if they could have specifically targeted desired audiences. We asked participants to report all content they thought about sharing but decided not to share on Facebook and interviewed participants about why they made sharing decisions and with whom they would have liked to have shared or not shared. Participants reported that they would have shared approximately half the unshared content if they had been able to exactly target their desired audiences.

Improving App Privacy: Nudging App Developers to Protect User Privacy

Smartphone app developers make many privacy-related decisions on what data to collect about users and how that data is used. Based on interviews and a survey of app developers, the authors identify several hurdles preventing app developers from improved privacy behaviors. These include the difficulties of reading and writing privacy policies as well as privacy not being their primary task. The authors suggest some nudges that would help app developers improve user privacy as well as public policy focus on incentivizing all players in the app development ecosystem to help developers implement better privacy behaviors.

Nudges for Privacy and Security: Understanding and Assisting Users’ Choices Online

Advancements in information technology often task users with complex and consequential privacy and security decisions. A growing body of research has investigated individuals’ choices in the presence of privacy and information security tradeoffs, the decision-making hurdles affecting those choices, and ways to mitigate such hurdles. This article provides a multi-disciplinary assessment of the literature pertaining to privacy and security decision making. It focuses on research on assisting individuals’ privacy and security choices with soft paternalistic interventions that nudge users toward more beneficial choices. The article discusses potential benefits of those interventions, highlights their shortcomings, and identifies key ethical, design, and research challenges.

The Impact of Timing on the Salience of Smartphone App Privacy Notices

In a series of experiments, we examined how the timing impacts the salience of smartphone app privacy notices. In a web survey and a field experiment, we isolated different timing conditions for displaying privacy notices: in the app store, when an app is started, during app use, and after app use. Participants installed and played a history quiz app, either virtually or on their phone. After a distraction or delay they were asked to recall the privacy notices content. Recall was used as a proxy for the attention paid to and salience of the notice. Showing the notice during app use significantly increased recall rates over showing it in the app store. In a follow-up web survey, we tested alternative app store notices, which improved recall but did not perform as well as notices shown during app use. The results suggest that even if a notice contains information users care about, it is unlikely to be recalled if only shown in the app store.

Designing Effective Privacy Notices and Controls

Privacy notice and choice are essential aspects of privacy and data protection regulation worldwide. Yet, todays privacy notices and controls are surprisingly ineffective at informing users or allowing them to express choice. Here, the authors analyze why existing privacy notices fail to inform users and tend to leave them helpless, and discuss principles for designing more effective privacy notices and controls.

Turtles, Locks, and Bathrooms: Understanding Mental Models of Privacy Through Illustration

Abstract Are the many formal definitions and frameworks of privacy consistent with a layperson’s understanding of privacy? We explored this question and identified mental models and metaphors of privacy, conceptual tools that can be used to improve privacy tools, communication, and design for everyday users. Our investigation focused on a qualitative analysis of 366 drawings of privacy from laypeople, privacy experts, children, and adults. Illustrators all responded to the prompt “What does privacy mean to you?” We coded each image for content, identifying themes from established privacy frameworks and defining the visual and conceptual metaphors illustrators used to model privacy. We found that many non-expert drawings illustrated a strong divide between public and private physical spaces, while experts were more likely to draw nuanced data privacy spaces. Young children’s drawings focused on bedrooms, bathrooms, or cheating on schoolwork, and seldom addressed data privacy. The metaphors, themes, and symbols identified by these findings can be used for improving privacy communication, education, and design by inspiring and informing visual and conceptual strategies for reaching laypeople.