The contextual integrity of the closet: Privacy, data mining and outing Facebook’s algorithmic logics

Abstract

In the 2010 book The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made the claim that ‘users have one identity’. Through a critical theoretical analysis of a series of case studies of people being outed by Facebook, this article argues that ‘one identity’ and Facebook’s use of algorithms to drive profits are fundamentally incongruous with prevailing intersectional scholarship. The case studies articulate a theoretical framework that ties intersectional conceptions of gender and sexuality to social media and privacy. By aligning intersectional and privacy theories, the article argues that ‘one identity’ constitutes a violation of privacy norms as conceptualized by Helen Nissenbaum’s framework of contextual integrity. The article concludes that Facebook is anathema to the privacy and real life experiences of its users, which cannot fit into static categories and which change over time, mitigating the potential for the performance of fluid and intersectional identities.

Mapping the social implications of platform algorithms for LGBTQ+ communities

“…A scholarship on the implications that platform algorithms -and platform affordances more generally -raise for LGBTQ+ users has emerged over the past few years. For example, researchers have suggested that the predictive nature of platform algorithms can result in outing LGBTQ+ people online by promoting default settings like publicness and visibility (Cho, 2018;Werbin et al, 2017). Some scholars have illustrated how digital platforms, guided by industry imperatives, rely on binary classification systems that reproduce cisheteronormative assumptions about gender and sexual orientation (Bivens & Haimson, 2016;Lingel & Golub, 2015) that can further lead to online harassment against LGBTQ+ users (Albury et al, 2020;Blackwell et al, 2017).…”

Everyone has a secret: Closeting and secrecy fromSmallvilletoThe Flash,and from shame to algorithmic risk

“…This shift from active military engagement abroad during the early years of the War on Terror to a strategy largely characterized by intelligence gathering, drone warfare, and mass surveillance, places The Flash within a fundamentally transformed culture strongly influenced by modern security politics and consequently also influenced by suspicion about both corporate and government surveillance. In particular, many scholars argue that despite social and legal progress, LGBTQ populations remain disproportionately vulnerable to regimes of mass surveillance and big data, as, for example, hidden exchanges of data revealing sexual preference may become the basis of automated discrimination, or nongender-conforming bodies can be marked as a threat by airport security (Bhattasali and Maiti, 2015;Conrad, 2009aConrad, , 2009bLewis, 2010;Phillips and Cunningham, 2007;Werbin et al, 2017). As a result, metaphors about closeting and secrecy in The Flash are differently inflected in relation to, on the one hand, modern gains made by the LGBTQ rights movement, and, on the other hand, increasing fears associated with pervasive state and corporate surveillance, as well as transformations in security politics.…”