Through your work in this module, you should have gained a robust and multifaceted understanding of privacy concerns, and gained experience using ethical principles to think through privacy issues in a cybersecurity context. Next, we’ll be turning to data ethics to think about moral issues in the acquisition and use of user data.

Before going on to the next module, take a minute and write down:

• Something about privacy that makes sense to you now that didn’t before, or
• Something about privacy that you thought made sense before that you realize now does not, or
• Something that you’re still trying to figure out about privacy.

An aspect of privacy that makes more sense to me is the privacy paradox and how people still care about maintaining privacy despite deciding to post on social media. Grimmelmann’s Introduction to the Myths of Privacy of Facebook opened me to a new perspective on social media and why people feel inclined to share their lives, while also acknowledging privacy as essential for them and wanting to stay somewhat private. Due to how culture has embraced peering into the lives of celebrities and popular figures, and social media was another vehicle for that same thing, people felt inclined to share about their own lives for some sense of fame. Social media can also be a way for people’s lives to have structure by information being delegated to one singular place. Finally, a majority of users will use and perceive the platform not as a place that has millions of people, but as a place for smaller communities, or connecting with people that they know, wanting privacy as compared to large exposure. These reasons are why people make posts but still want a sense of privacy. Regarding the concept, I always had the idea that social media users had little care when it came to their privacy due to the amount of information that they were willing to expose to millions of people, but now I have a clearer understanding of the concept and privacy overall.