Facebook’s New Policy Is a Danger to Teens: Selinger and Hartzog

When Facebook Inc. recently lifted its restriction on public posts by teenagers, some privacy scholars applauded the move as a win for parents -- offering them a chance to teach their children about digital accountability. They may be overstating the case, however. If information and communication technologies aren’t designed to help users -- especially younger ones -- guard their information, appeals to good judgment and discipline won’t go very far.

To understand the dynamics of Internet privacy, parents need to appreciate what Facebook had previously done to shield its young users. Before the most recent change, the social-media site did a decent job of protecting privacy through obscurity, especially for teenagers. Under its former policy, younger users could communicate only within their extended network. Their biggest privacy concern was whether one of their “friends” or a “friend of friend” would release their information to an unintended audience.