Lisandro Tolentino

Introduction:

Our research project investigates on how Facebook (1) upholds its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy with regard to users deactivating and deleting their own Facebook accounts, and (2) analyzes how Facebook has become part of the daily life of college student. Our group of seven split into three groups: Deactivate, Delete, and Control in order to analyze each scenario. Through out the course of a week, each individual was required to log their thoughts and findings about the day that were relevant to Facebook and their lives. I was part of the control group, along with Jesus Gonzales, which meant that I kept my Facebook.

Annotated Bibliography

See the entitled page in the blog:

http://soc49facebook.blogspot.com/p/biblography.html

Data, Methods, Ethics

We decided to collaboratively archive an auto-ethnography of our own experiences in daily logs for data. This was the best way to do our research because we were presented this topic late in the quarter and it deemed beneficial for us to just write our own experiences and analyze them together. Each group member did their own log for how ever much time they thought was appropriate. In these daily logs, individuals within the team catalog their daily lives with or without regular access to Facebook and provide insightful commentary on their particular experiences.

Log 1. 3/6-7 We all met in the library and decided who would delete/deactivate/keep their Facebook accounts. I told my team that I had to keep mine because my Job relied on it. I work for an app company called Friendthem, which revolves around Facebook. It uses location-based technology to simplify the friend request search process…to look more into it visit Friendthem.com

After they all deleted/deactivated their profiles I begant to continuously search for them on Facebook. They were all hidden from me like Facebook said. Even old comments on peoples pages were hidden. But are the information  hidden or completely deleted forever—not stored in some Facebook server? I will further go over this topic in my analysis.

            Anyways March 6 also was my mothers Birthday. I posted a picture of my mother and I and it received 101 likes on the picture, which meant that at least 101 of my Facebook friends were able to view the picture and push a button saying they liked the picture. The picture also had 10 comments on it. I felt popular and happy that I kept my Facebook.

            I also was able to listen to music on Spotify, which only works with Facebook. Facebook makes what I listen to public. I can choose to hide it but that means every new song I have to click "hide story"

During this time I also began to question who had access to my profile besides my friends. Do pages I “like” have access to my information? For example companies/ bands?

            This is what I found on Facebook:

Can a Page see my information if I Like it?

Pages cannot see the profiles (timelines) of people who connect with them, only their profile picture and name. Pages also do not have access to a News Feed with information about what the activity of the people who connect with them. Page admins, however, will be able to see anything you’ve made available as Public on your profile (timeline) by visiting your profile (timeline). Pages can communicate with people who like their Page by sending messages. Authenticated Pages may also post status updates, which may appear in the News Feeds of users that like the Page.

Log 2. 3/8-9  The second formal meeting we had with our group was during at March 8 and we discussed our feelings about the Facebook experiment. Everyone was on track. People talked about how hard it was to deactivate/ delete their Facebook and about the process.  Many members of the Deactivation sample group and the Deletion sample group already began to complain. Those who deleted and deactivated were unable to access accounts of Spotify and other applications.

I went to formal dance that weekend and everyone was taking pictures. People began to mobile upload them to Facebook and I was in many pictures. My friends were able to see what I was doing that night.  I’m glad I kept my Facebook because I would have been anxious to see the pictures that were taking on my date and I.  I also was “friended” by people I met during the weekend. I did not get their number but I was glad that they added me on Facebook and found me. I was then later connected to their friends as well. This shows how Facebook can bring people together. I maintained my use of Facebook as normal and continued to live my connected life.

                       

Log 3 (3/10-11).  I had I project due for my communications class and realized that when I have a project to turn in, I tend to procrastinate a lot by going on Facebook. I found myself browsing pictures and videos of people form my hometown that I don’t even talk to anymore.          

            We talked about how you can Google yourself and your Facebook page is the first thing that shows up. People who deactivated their Facebook no longer could witness themselves on Google search. This was a good discovery because it upheld to the terms of privacy. Since I kept mine I was able to search myself and access it. It was weird to see what showed up because it asks if I was the right “Lisandro Tolentino” and shows all the people with similar names. Should Facebook give suggestions to whoever is searching for you?

            All night I also witnessed the Joseph Kony revolution. Facebook was packed with his video and image. People who didn’t have their Facebook didn’t really know what was going on. Its weird how things can spread so fast on Facebook.

Log 4 (3/12-13) Temptation is starting to really set in with the other group members; I know that Dylan removed a link to Facebook in the bookmarks feature of Internet browser to hopefully divert my attention from it. I began to search for the people in on the team . I found out  that Facebook's promise of securing one's account from public view upon deactivating it is holding up for now. I continued continue to test this several times till the experiment was over.

   In keeping my Facebook I continued to browse through my friends and chat with people I met this quarter making sure I maintain those relationships. I was happy I kept my Facebook. Even though it there was times I procrastinated, I was able to make stronger connections with people.

            This was the final day of the deactivation period. All but Alaina were relived to get back on Facebook. They didn’t realize how big Facebook was part of their lives and finally connected Alaina continued to stay off her Facebook because she says it was too distracting and enjoys her free time not browsing through Facebook

            Throughout the week I felt connected and Facebook upheld their privacy because I couldn’t find anyone in the group who deactivated/ deleted. We all talked about our experience after class and compared results.

Analysis

Our current society is very depended on social media and technology. Without internet, I believe the average American will likely have feelings of anxiety and deprivation/feeling out of the loop. Our auto ethnography results conclude that Facebook is used to communicate and network with friends and is a key tool in the social life of many college students. Facebook can even hold as a distraction when trying to get things done.  This research made realized I would get very distracted on Facebook. For example I would try logging in to quickly check a message or one notification, but instead myself scrolling through pictures and videos of a friend I just met and soon  find myself checking the friends you have in common. A quick check would turn into something longer then a few minutes. This addictive quality keeps Facebook's typical user on the site for an average of 169 minutes a month, according to ComScore. In comparison with Google News, where the average reader spends 13 minutes a month checking up on the world, or the New York Times website, which holds on to readers for a mere ten minutes a month.

I found that Facebook is very addicting because it builds a somewhat of an online version of the relationships we have in real life. Offline we bump into friends and end up talking for hours. We flip through old photos with our family. We join clubs and make events. Facebook lets us do all that in digital form. Yet we also present different faces to the different people in our lives: An "anything goes" cyberself page we share with friends might not be appropriate for office mates - or for the moms and grandmas who increasingly are joining the site. Basic privacy controls  allow users to share varying degrees of information with friends and those privacy terms are upheld.

 As stated in the introduction and in the video the purpose of this research project was also to try and test privacy when a Facebook account is kept, deactivated, and deleted. Facebook supposedly makes you unsearchable when you deactivate the account, but they still keep your tagged photos, videos, comment, and statuses and statuses, pictures, videos, and comments can be retrieved one the account is reactivated. The interesting thing that they found out was that once they tried to deactivate their account Facebook would come up with several Facebook friends and show pictures with both people and say that this specific person will miss them if they deactivate their account. Another thing that must be done is that you must take a survey and tell Facebook the exact reason of why they wish to deactivate their account.

Our auto-ethnography results showed no signs of Facebook breaking their privacy terms for the most part. The two people who deleted their accounts  had to access Google in order to find out how to actually delete their Facebook accounts because Facebook makes it difficult to delete a page. They have to follow many steps in order to follow the deletion process. Once they submitted their deletion form they were given a message that said that their information would be gone within 14 days. Jesus and I checked to see if the people that deactivated their accounts were searchable and we found that they were nowhere to be found. Facebook held up its privacy terms as for the information being hidden at least from Google search. We then met up as a group 14 days later to discuss our findings and the two group members that deleted their Facebook were not able to log in, but they were given a message that said that it would take 7 more days, a total of 21 days, in order to get rid of all the information that they had left on Facebook. As a group we found this very interesting because even though all their information, videos, pictures, comments, and post weren’t searchable, Facebook still needed an extra 7 days to do something else. Beside this Facebook did follow their terms of service and privacy because the two people who deleted their Facebook were not searchable and they were not able to log in after 14 days, even though Facebook asked the to wait another 7 days for the process to be complete. Even though Facebook had followed their privacy terms, Facebook made it very hard to use other applications or programs without a Facebook account. One of these programs that was hard to use without a Facebook account was Spotify; This goes to show that Facebook is connected and associated to many things online. 

   In conclusion, I realized that it is very important to monitor the use of Facebook when you have to be productive. One must also remember to be careful to what they put up on Facebook because it is stored, even in trying to delete it for at least 21 days.