This document summarizes a study examining factors associated with users making their Facebook profiles only visible to friends. The study analyzed survey responses from 444 Facebook users. Models tested included demographic factors, rule development around disclosure to ties, boundary coordination of expected audiences, and boundary turbulence from privacy management experiences. The boundary coordination model found expectancy violations from weak ties increased odds of a friends-only profile. The boundary turbulence model found more privacy management led to friends-only profiles. The models provide insights into the dynamic process of boundary regulation on social networks.

1. Friends Only:Examining a Privacy-Enhancing Behavior in Facebook Fred Stutzman and Jacob Kramer-Duffield, UNC

2. Changes in SNS adoption landscape Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2009, 2010

3. Changes in SNS landscape Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2009, 2010

4. Changes in Facebook Terms ofservicechange Open toregionalnetworks Open toselectworkplaces Open to most colleges End ofregionalnetworks Publicprofiles Beacon News Feedintroduced Facebookat Harvard 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

5. Changes in Facebook

7. Implications of Change Shift from common identity to common bond e.g. Ren, Kraut & Kiesler, 2007; Sassenberg, 2002 Uses, flows of social capital and social support e.g. Lampe et al. 2008 Management of disclosureboundaries and contexts

8. Managing Contexts Presence of multiple social groups Behavioral strategies Mental strategies “Least common denominator” Source:Lampinen et al., 2009

9. Context Tension Connections across status and power boundaries Propriety, work, family Harms from crossed boundaries Inadvertent disclosures across contexts Source:Skeels and Grudin, 2009

10. Putting Context in Context Friendster “Burners, gay men, and bloggers” Myspace Teens and mirror profiles Twitter Practical obscurity Source: boyd, 2006, 2007, Stutzman and Hartzog, 2009

11. Going Friends-Only Moving profile from network-viewable to viewable only by Friends Implications: Searching, browsing and finding Networked information contribution, apps Person perception, relational formation

12. Going Friends-Only Publicly available information: Name, city, gender, photo, list of friends, fan pages, networks, friends list (temporarily)

13. Going Friends-Only Use Privacy Settings: 83.2% Friends-only: 58.3% 2005: 5% (+/-1), 2006: 12% (+/- 1), 2007: 23% (+/- 4), 2008: 58% (+/- 5)

14. Going Friends-Only RQ: What factors are associated with having a friends-only profile? Boundary regulation theories of privacy Altman, Derlega and Chaikin Applied in HCI, Social Computing Palen and Dourish, Tufekci, Dwyer Applied in Organizations (Allen et al.), Education (Mazer et al.), Communication (Petronio, Child et al.) Others Self

15. Petronio’s CPM Process of Communication Privacy Management Rule Development Who gets to know what Boundary coordination Applying rules-in-context Boundary turbulence Reacting to events, managingand regulating rules Source:Petronio, 2003

16. Study Design Web-based survey Pilot test, n=76 Full survey, June 2008, n=494 Response Analysis 94% of respondents usedFacebook Analytical sample, n=444 Males, minorities, youngerstudents under-represented Analysis is unweighted, FPCnot applied

17. Analytic Plan RQ: What factors are associated with having a friends-only profile? DV: Having a friends only profile Models Null and demographic baselines Rule development Boundary coordination Boundary turbulence Evaluation Within comparison likelihood ratio test Between comparison with AIC, BIC, ROC

18. Baseline Model Demographic factors School year, gender, ethnicity Facebook use factors Number of friends, length of membership, time spent on site

19. Rule Development Who do you tell what? H1: Strong ties = inward-focused H2: Random ties = outside-focused e.g.Strahilevitz, 2005 Evaluation No items, blocks significant Problems: Lack of variation due to normative orientation in friending practices; Instrumentation Scale: Lampe et al., 2006, 2008; Ellison et al. 2007

20. Boundary Coordination Coordinating permeability rules Friends can know my gossip People around campus shouldn’t Salient audiences Intended audience Expected audience

21. Boundary Coordination Exploring the effects of “expectancy violations” Violations effects coded Analyzed simultaneously Evaluation Weak tie expectancy violations result in 3.31 increase in odds of beingfriends-only The meaningful externalboundary?

22. Boundary Turbulence Maintenance and (re)negotiation of disclosure boundaries Predictors Conversant privacy scale Advised someone to change FB profile/picture… Wall management scale Removed wall post (self/other) Covariates Gender, profile management effort Alphas: Conversant: .69, Wall: .73, Effort: .79

23. Boundary Turbulence Exploring effects of interpersonal privacy management Analyzed simultaneously Evaluation Individuals who engage inhigher amounts of conversant management morelikely to have friends-only profile Gender, effort not significant

24. Model Comparison Compare predictive strength of the models Non-nested comparisons employ AIC, BIC, ROC, etc. All models represent incremental improvements

25. Goals Explore the process of going friends-only Apply theories of boundary regulation, and Communications Privacy Management, in SNS context Identify and prioritize models for further exploration

26. Implications Dynamic identification of functional network boundary Opportunity to create non-reciprocal communication interfaces Increase opportunities for collaboration around privacy settings

27. Thank you! Fred Stutzman Fred.stutzman@unc.edu http://twitter.com/fstutzman Jacob Kramer-Duffield jkramerd@gmail.com http://twitter.com/jaykaydee