CHRISTIAN FUCHS - ICT&S - Universität Salzburg

Christian Fuchs: Social Networking Sites and the Surveillance Society7.5. Usage of Facebook39.5% of the respondents use Facebook (figure 26), which is clearly a lower numberthan in the case of Facebook (88.3%).Figure 26. Usage intensity of Facebook94.0% of the Facebook users in our survey answered correctly that Facebook is allowedto collect and store data on their information behaviour (figure 27). Only 20.4% knewthat Facebook is allowed to reuse and resell personal data (figure 28). 54.5% knew thatadvertising clients of Facebook are allowed to gather data on the information behaviourof users (figure 29). Only 33.2% answered correctly that Facebook is always allowed tosend them personalized advertising (figure 30). By combining the answers to these fourquestions, we calculated the Facebook knowledge index (figure 31): 4.7% of theFacebook users had little knowledge about Facebook (no correct answer), 31.5% smallknowledge (one correct answer), 29.8% average knowledge (two correct answers),26.0% good knowledge (three correct answers), and 8.1 a high degree of knowledge(four correct answers). This means that only 34.1% of the Facebook users had a good orhigh degree of knowledge about what Facebook is allowed to do with their data,whereas in the case of studiVZ users the degree of correct answers to such questionswas on average 88.7% (=the average of 91.8% and 85.6%). The knowledge about whatplatforms are allowed to do with personal data is much higher in the case of studiVZthan in the case of Facebook. An explanation for this difference can be that studiVZ ismore used, more discussed between friends, more discussed in the media, and hadattracted the attention of many users when it changed it terms of use, whereasFacebook is less known and less discussed in personal conversations and in the public.80