The Privacy Filter: Your Users Don’t Think About Privacy the Way You Do

In this episode, Owen Agho explores generational perspectives on privacy, focusing on location sharing, social media, and AI. Featuring students from Georgetown University, it highlights how different age groups perceive privacy risks and social norms in the digital age.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to the Privacy Filter, Laurent and Thornburg's briefing on privacy law and policy. Subscribe for the latest updates.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Alright, hello everyone. Welcome to the privacy filter. Allow me to briefly introduce myself. My name's Owen Avo. I'm a data privacy and AI associate here at the firm. But outside of my work at the firm, I've spent the past four years teaching a graduate level course at Georgetown on privacy and surveillance. And today I'm joined by a few of my students for a conversation about different generational perspectives on privacy. This episode was inspired by a discussion we had in class, actually, where we were talking about how different generations think about privacy. My students, who I'll let introduce themselves in a moment, share perspectives which I found uh very revealing. Full disclosure, I'm a millennial in my 30s, which is something I'm reminded of every time I step into the classroom. For the audience, uh as lawyers, we spend a lot of time thinking about data breaches, contracts, privacy notices. But sometimes we may not spend enough time thinking about the end users our clients are trying to serve. My hope is that you'll find today's discussion um it's insightful as I did in the classroom. Let me pause for a bit and have our guests introduce themselves today. Um and they can either get their age or their age range, uh, whatever they're comfortable with. Uh Megan, would you like to start?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

So I'm Megan and I'm a millennial. Uh so definitely on the older uh edge of this cohort. Um I'm doing my master's at Georgetown for communication, culture, and technology, and my undergrad was in philosophy.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Oh, do you know what you want to do after?

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Uh still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

So gotcha. Okay. Abby.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

My name is Abby. Uh I am kind of on the cusp between Millennial and Gen Z. I am a second year in the communication, culture, and technology program, um, where I've been focusing a lot on technology policy, trust and safety, um, online safety, especially, um, for teens and people under 18 is really what I'm focused on.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Kiara.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

Um, I'm Chiara. I am a Gen Z. I'm 21 years old. Um, and I'm an undergrad at Georgetown, and I'm majoring in government, and then I'm double minoring in public health and um tech ethics. Um, and I want to go into like health policy, like um public health policy.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Hi, uh, I'm Maria. I'm also an undergrad here at Georgetown, specifically a junior. I'm studying international politics um and like you're minoring in technology ethics and society. Um and I'm also starting next year doing my master's in security studies here at Georgetown. Um, and I'm interested in a career in national security.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

And again, thank you guys all for joining us today. To kind of level set our discussion, um, I looked up a survey. So in 2024, Deloitte performed the connected consumer survey. Um, and I'm just gonna list two of the findings to kind of get us started in our discussion here. So the survey found that Gen Z falls victim to scams at a higher rate than boomers. Uh almost one-third of Gen Z respondents reported having had a social media account hacked in the past. Gen Z surveyed were twice as more likely as boomers to have a social media account hacked, fall for an online scam, had their identity stolen, or had a device hacked over the past year. And then the majority of consumers overall, regardless of generation, uh, 79% found believe that technology providers are not very clear about their data privacy and security policies. And 79% also feel it's not very easy to control the data that technology providers have about them. So when we get to this issue of control, it kind of made me think about like the the technology to kind of spur our discussion in the first place, uh, which was the different thoughts about location sharing. Um, who would like to kick us off to kind of set the stage for uh some of the debates we had in class about different viewpoints on location sharing? Megan, hold it down for the millennials. I need you, I need you to come on for the millennials.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

All right. So I just don't really share my location. I don't share it with friends at all. Um, the only time that I ever share my location at all is like if I'm going out somewhere and my plans change or meeting my husband and he's like, hey, how far away are you? Is everything okay? Um, I'll just share my location then, but it's not like a consistent sharing. And I think that that's like, I don't know if that's a thing that's consistent across my cohort, but I remember in class having this discussion and realizing that a lot of the younger students were just kind of consistently sharing their location with people. So that was kind of interesting. And if Maria or Chiara wanna add on to that aspect.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Yeah, I can jump in. I would say the experience for Gen Z is um, like you sort of mentioned, quite the opposite. Um, I think a lot of people, especially people that I surround myself with, have sort of come to view the Find My iPhone app as another social media platform. Um, where it's sort of an expectation that if you have close friends or family members, you're gonna be sharing your location with them constantly. I think even with people that you may not necessarily incredibly close to, if you're all going to a specific place on a night out or going on a specific trip, the expectation is that you'll share your location with them. And I think what I've noticed is that the reaction to not sharing your location is often judgment because I I think a theme we'll see across today's discussion is I don't think Gen Z cares much about what we call traditional online privacy. It's more about the social aspect. So I don't really think most of people my age care much if a company is tracking our location for ads. I think it's more about, like I said, the social aspect. I remember, oh, do you want to do that?

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Can I apologize there for a second? So can you talk more about like when you say judgment, what are we really talking about? What does that look like in actual practice?

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Yeah, I think, like I said, it has to do with the fact that it's so normalized and more of an expectation where if you're with a group of five girls and you're all going to a comedy show and you want to make sure that you have everyone's location, there's an expectation that no one will sort of question that, right? Everyone is just like willing constantly to share their location and be okay with people that can even be people you just met, right? Having your location, whether that be temporary or or long term. Um, I think this is what I was gonna bring up. I did speech and debate in high school. Um, and every weekend we would go on different trips to competitions around the country. And that was a group of, I think, 30 or 40 people traveling every weekend. And if I go on my Find My iPhone app right now, I still have the location of I think at least 60% of those people, and it's been more than three years. So, like I said, I I think people, especially my age, never really question what those around us will do if they have our location. And then the the concern is more so if I give a reason for not sharing my location, maybe I'll experience some judgments. People will think I'm up to something. Uh why like I think the expectation is what are you hiding if you're not willing to share that with other people?

SPEAKER_04 7:45

Yeah, um, I agree completely with what Maria has said. And um, I also kind of want to talk about like other platforms like Snapchat. I think um Snapchat kind of became like a a big thing socially. I would say like starting in uh middle school for Maria and I. And like I don't even know if mine is on or off right now. It's it might be on for all I know.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

I and I think let's shut the podcast on.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

Um, I think that kind of like set the precedent for normalizing like location sharing. And I remember that being like a big thing kind of growing up, like in high school and middle school. I would like we would go on SnapMaps and be like, oh, where is everyone? Like, let's all go to like the mall or I don't know, this random ice cream shop because like I can see everyone's little Snapchat Bitmoji is like at this specific location. And I think now I definitely uh have utilized Snapchat less and more so like find my iPhone. I think I counted the other day, and I think I have 28 people on my find my iPhone. Um, some of them are like my very close friends, some of them are friends I don't really talk to as much from like a while ago. But I I do agree that I think it's like there's kind of like an awkward, I don't know, norm around sharing locations where it's like once you share your location with someone, especially on Find MyPhone or like even like Life 360, it's kind of weird to then unshare it because you do get like a notification, your messages with that person, it would say, like, oh, I unshared my location with so-and-so. And that's kind of like an awkward thing to explain. Cause again, what Maria said, there is sort of that norm that it's like, what are you hiding? Why, why would you not want to share your location with me?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

And Abby is a person who kind of sits between two generations. What are what are some of your thoughts here?

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Yeah, I mean, I think my answer is kind of like in between the two, which feels like a little too obvious. But yeah, I definitely have like some people's location from like going to music festivals together in high school and things like that, of people like I haven't spoken to in a very long time. I just kind of noticed that they're there, and I'm like, okay, I probably should stop sharing because we really play no role in each other's lives right now.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Can I hone in for a quick second? So these are people who we haven't probably talked to in a decade. But if you picked up your phone, you could see exactly where they are right now. This second.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Yeah, it's not many of them. It's maybe honestly like three or four people. Like it's not a lot, it's not like a huge amount of people, but yeah, it just feels like it's so ingrained that yeah, it would feel like maybe what if I do have to reach out to them one day and then they see that I I even though I'm sure they don't care, it's kind of just like ambient background noise at this point to me, a little bit. But that being said, like I do not share location in the same casual way that I did in high school currently. Like now it's really only like I've had the same friend group in DC for the past like three or four years, and we only just started sharing location with each other like earlier this year, you know. So it like took some time to like establish that baseline. Like, okay, you're someone who's like very much in my life. I do kind of want to like be able to see if you're in my neighborhood and I'm free and just text me and be like, wait, what are you doing right now? Wanna hang out? I also share location with my husband, but that is really just like checking in on commute, just being like, Oh, are you close to home? Oh, you are. I should probably clean a little bit more, something like that, you know, and just sort of like the main people who are closest to me in my life, I kind of like having that knowledge and I like them knowing where I am, but I definitely don't do the kind of casual big group sharing the way that I used to when I was younger, and it was kind of like a newer feature.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Megan, I feel like you wanted to jump in.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

I have a question for everybody who does the location sharing thing. So you say that the keeping of people on your location sharing, as far as like, you know, acquaintances or people that you don't interact with anymore. Has there been a situation in the past where like maybe somebody that you didn't interact with super well like unfault or unshared their location with you? Like, were you judgy about that? Or like do you feel like it was uncomfortable for you when that happened? I'm just really curious about what's driving like these kind of perceptions.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

I will say for me, I have had that happen and I have not cared at all.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

I was gonna say, I I don't think if there's someone that I'm not very close to anymore, if they stopped sharing their location with me, I would necessarily care. But I think inevitably, by what Kara was saying, the second you get a notification saying XYZ person stop sharing their location, I think my generation sort of views it as a statement. For example, I have an acquaintance that I'm not very close to anymore at Georgetown, and I've still had her location for I think over a year and a half now, and we haven't talked, I think literally in a year and a half, because I think there is that judgment or that fear that the second you stop sharing, it's sort of like I said, sort of like a statement or or directly telling the person, I don't want you seeing where I am anymore, or I have something to hide. So I do think even if objectively I want to say I wouldn't care, I think we're conditioned to sort of react in a way that that questions that.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

There's a quick interjection here. I remember in class another student sharing that um when she stopped sharing her location with a friend, um, that it did cause like an argument between the two people, like what happened, why did you do this? So I I found that interesting. I feel like Megan is a fellow millennial. The close thing we had is like if you weren't in someone's MySpace top eight and you were before, now it's like an issue. I I sense like a similar type of vibe in terms of how people are viewing a way more invasive knowing.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

It's a passive aggressive kind of movement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Yeah, I think it's like what I said. I think it's people in my generation genuinely view it as another social media app. I know friends that just go and find my i iPhone for fun to just see what people are doing or where people are going. So I think, yeah, if if you were to unshare your location with one of your roommates or one of your close friends, they would A immediately question it. And if you if it wasn't an accident and you intentionally did that, I do see that leading to some sort of conflict.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

Yeah, I I want to say like I agree completely with what Maria has said. And I think also like to take it further in romantic relationships, I think it's even more of like a a strong precedent. Like I've had friends where like their boyfriend like randomly one day unshared their location and they're like, oh, immediately like he's cheating on me, he's doing something wrong, or like vice versa. But yeah, so I think definitely it is a statement in that like if you unshare your location with someone, especially like a romantic partner, you are mad at them and you broke up, or they're doing something that they shouldn't be. I think there's like more to it than just like, oh, maybe like the there would never be like the notion, like, oh, I I'm now suddenly caring about my privacy and I don't want you to see that. Like nobody would interpret it as such, I think.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

I think that's really interesting. I was gonna ask about the difference between like friends versus significant others as well. Um, so thank you for bringing that up. And I wonder if the expectation would change around that. Like if it went from just everybody was expected to start sharing, because I feel like one of the the problem isn't necessarily like sharing location in general, but like when you stop sharing and it's uh it's your choice. I think it's it's interesting, like the choice to share, but then like the act of choice to continue on sharing even after the relationship is no longer relevant to you.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

I feel like I don't view it so much as like an active choice to continue on sharing because it's like it's more of like a norm that someone that I was close to or even not like super close to, but not like a complete stranger that I think is gonna like harm me. I don't see any reason for why I would stop sharing other than like Maria said, like to make a statement or I don't know, I feel like it's it would be more of a choice for me to stop sharing than not, if that makes sense. Like it's it's more of a passive thing that I don't think about.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah, I think both and Kiara, um, it was a mutual friend where it was like two very close girlfriends. One of them was just not telling, I guess, the the other friend where she was after like a night out. And so they they were sharing their locations. It like I said, I think most people in in my age group, especially my close friends, have each other's locations. Um, you don't really think about it. So the friend that was sort of wondering where where where the second person was went into Life 360. I think there's a feature where you can sort of track someone's footsteps or the the path that they've been on, caught her in a lie, and then the next day sort of called her into her room and was like, Hey, why'd you tell me you were at X Place when you actually walked here first? Then 20 minutes after went to this place, and it was just sort of a massive invasion of privacy. They stopped sharing each other's locations after that.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

That's that's exactly what I remember happening. And I think from our perspective, like Maria and I definitely view that as like a violation of privacy. And most people in our generation would be like, Yeah, that is weird behavior. Like, I don't I don't think you should take it to a level where you're like actively tracking your friend's footsteps, um, even though that is like an available feature, especially if the reasons to like catch them in a lie.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

I think that's I think we had said like I don't think it's any different than if you're like actively tracking someone's path over the past two hours. I personally don't see it as any different as you being 20 steps behind that person in real life. I I think it's the same sort of stalking behavior. I I said the word violation of privacy when it's not really a violation of privacy because you consented to share your location with that person and you sort of know what it entails. But I think the expectation that that's gonna be weaponized in my generation is not really there. It's more, like I said, more of like a social norm thing, seeing where your friends are. And I think it's a rare case where you have to to question if someone's gonna use that for like maligned purposes. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

We spend a lot of time talking about like some of the more social pressures involved in terms of sharing locations. Do you guys believe that you or your friends, people in your cohort, give any thought to the fact that not only can other individuals in their chosen network see where they are at any given time, but many companies also have an idea of where you are, and as a result, they're kind of able to use that data and piece it along with the other parts of data they collected about you to form a more collected picture of who you are.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

I just think that that is a good point to bring up because I feel like when I think about like the two, those two avenues of like people that I know that I'm choosing to share my location with versus the current kind of again, like not to use the word ambient again, but like ambient constant collection of my location data by like corporate entities and companies um and advertisers and things like that. Like I do think that it's useful and good to talk about like people sharing their location casually um amongst their social circle, but ultimately we have so much more control over that situation than the other situation. And it's like at least we know those people. So I just think it's like a really good kind of parallel and distinction to draw. That that's all.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

I was gonna say, like, I think at least from my perspective and like the perspective of some of my friends, like I think now after taking like this class and like learning more about the harms of location sharing from like corporate data collection and so on, like I now understand like why that is an issue. But I think for people in my generation, like we may acknowledge that yes, like our data is probably being collected, but I think there's a sense of like everything that we do, our data is probably being collected. And it's like, what's one more app or location or company that's collecting our data? And I think also the sense of like, oh, I don't know the I don't know the company or the person from that company that's looking at my data on like a personal level or like looking at my location. I think like the anonymity of that kind of creates like a sense of like, oh, my privacy is not being violated because it's not someone that I know or care about that has the or that is looking at like my location or my data.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

I was just gonna say I echo what Kara said. I think Abby, you might have shared this, but um, it's a malware byte study that I think said uh about 33% of Gen Z respondents in a specific study strongly agree or agree with the fact that they wouldn't mind if a company sort of tracked their personal data for targeted ads. Um, I just truly, unless you're constantly engaging conversations about data privacy or the harms of things like targeted surveillance, surveillance capitalism, I don't think the average person my age is gonna care. I think it's false to say that Gen C doesn't care about privacy as a whole. I think it's different kinds of privacy. Any of my friends would not really care if their their passwords are out there in data breaches or if um they're getting targeted ads, if they're being hacked. I don't think that's the main concern. I think it's more so about social harm, right? I think the average Gen C individual would care much more if an embarrassing video of them was acquired by someone and posted online, or if any sort of like, I don't know, maybe their their sexual orientation. There's target example that we've talked about where a pregnant woman was sort of tracked using buyer and consumer data, and then her family found out she was pregnant. I think Gen Z cares much more about the social harm aspect of it than a company hitting you with with targeted ads.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Yeah, I think that's really good to bring up. And I just briefly want to say positioning, I think to your point, like I don't think it's fair to say that like a group of people does or does not care about the concept of privacy. I feel like it's just like growing up in this environment with so much control and so much of our life is like mediated through technology and things like that. It just feels like what are you gonna do about it is like a lot of what I hear from my friends when I bring this up. Because obviously I would be in this class and then see my friends and be like, you guys, why aren't we caring about this? Like we need to do something. But the attitude just really is like one of defeat already, where it's like obviously advantageous to certain groups of people in the world for people to feel that way, for it to you to feel like unmotivated to do anything about it. And I think just again, like growing up in that environment, it makes it hard to think of like, well, what is the point of worrying about this? Because what am I gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

So I found that really interesting when you said that the person who's like looking at your location and all of your data, like you don't know them, so like why do you care? Where, like in my head, that almost made it scarier to me, like some stranger having access to all of my data. And I don't know anything about these people, but they know. Almost everything about me. So I think that that was like a really interesting thing that like kind of ran through my mind while you were talking about that. So I don't know if that's looking at it from that perspective is comfortable.

SPEAKER_04 22:13

I think it goes back to what Maria said where Gen Z cares about privacy in the way that it could harm them, like from a social perspective. And I think because like we don't know that employee of Life 360 that's looking at our location and our data or even like that software, we don't really care. I think. Yeah, is basically the the point I was trying to make.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Okay. So we've kind of talked about this now, generation of views in terms of location sharing. But there's a big piece that we need to connect it to. And let's talk about social media. We've kind of touched on it in different ways. You mentioned uh Snapchat, I dated myself and talked about MySpace. Um, but can we talk more about uh some of the uh more contemporary views each of you may have or singing your fellow cohort regarding the use of social media? Like, for example, I don't have TikTok on my phone, um, but I like every other good millennial, I see TikToks when they show up on Instagram. So I'm kind of curious to kind of hear uh uh people's different views on social media and some of the privacy concerns that may come along with its usage.

SPEAKER_04 23:21

I think it's funny that you bring up TikTok. That one for me has been like a battle internally where there's been so many times, like after taking your class and other classes, like I took a cybersecurity class as well. I've like deleted TikTok and been like, I'm done with this app. It's so bad for like democracy, for me, for my privacy, etc. And then I'll like find myself re-downloading it like a few weeks later because my friends will send me TikToks and they'll be like, You haven't been responding to my TikToks, or like, did you see this like pop culture thing that's going on with this influencer and like this drama? And I'm like, no, I deleted TikTok, and they're like, What's wrong with you? Why did you delete TikTok? And I'll like try and explain, like, oh yeah, I learned about this in like one of my classes, like it's really bad. And they're like, Okay, what are you talking about? Like, just re-download it, and then like I go and I re-download it, like it's on my phone right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

I want to be clear, I did not say TikTok was bad or good. I know, I know, some other technology and some familiarity.

SPEAKER_04 24:16

No, I know, yeah, you never have said that specifically, but this is like from what I've gathered from like learning about TikTok more. Like, definitely one side of me is like, I should not have this app. I don't think it's good for US democracy or my privacy, much less. But yeah, there's still that internal battle going on. So we'll see what happens next week with TikTok on my phone. It's here right now, but it's not in the phone right now, though.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

As we film this podcast.

SPEAKER_04 24:43

Yeah, it's on here right now, but maybe after this I'll be like, oh, I just replaced a podcast about privacy.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

I really should delete it. I I don't think that's I agree, and I don't think that's uncommon. I think like half of my friends every two weeks are re-downloading and deleting TikTok or other social media apps, but I think the social buy-in is just sort of like too strong in the social pressure where like it's not really a question of whether you participate anymore, it's how you participate. I think especially like we've seen social media platforms lose the like social aspect. I think initially 10 years ago, you were using Facebook um to like keep up with your family members or connect with friends who lived in a in a different continent or a different country. But I think um social media platforms have just sort of become like this consumption space where I think most people my age are getting their news from TikTok and Instagram reels or something. I think on TikTok, there's like the TikTok shop where you can just online shop on a social media platform now. Even Snapchat, which was initially sort of created to just send pictures that would delete after after you opened it, now sort of has like a for you page as well with influencers and and you can scroll. So I think just it's it's incredibly difficult to not participate, not only from from a social pressure angle. But like Kara said, if someone's talking about something that happened last week in class, they probably saw it from TikTok. And you probably, unless you're actively reading the news, um, you're probably unaware of it.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Are you guys like posters on TikTok? Like, do you actually post content and stuff, or is it mostly just you're just looking through other people's feeds and like looking at influencer stuff?

SPEAKER_04 26:22

I would say I occasionally post content, but I do have a private account where it's mainly just my friends that follow. Just because I think I'm like I'm kind of concerned about my digital footprint. I think from a privacy standpoint, that would be like my biggest thing. Like, I don't want to like not get a job because of not that I post anything crazy, but you never know. So yeah, but I I definitely I post like not every day or anything, but I don't know, maybe maybe once a week, but I would say mostly it's it's consumption for sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

And to what Kiara said, I think that's the thought process in general with privacy with most people our age. I guarantee you, if my friends are deleting TikTok um or not posting, it's not because they're scared that the CCP has like data about them that they're gonna weaponize. It's because they want to get a job and they don't want the company doing a background check and and I don't know, finding TikToks of them. And like I also think there's like a contradiction between using social media platforms and having privacy. There's this incredibly big pressure to share absolutely every single aspect of your life, and that inherently goes against having any sense of privacy. The more you share sort of and and grow your online profile, which is what we are expected to do, the more information you put out there and the less privacy you have.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Now, Mendy, you were asking questions, but you didn't allude to your own um engagements. Um you as a mother of four, I believe, as well, bringing another vantage point to this discussion. So I'm curious as to how you would talk about your own social media usage and then also uh that of what you're seeing in your um your kids' peer group as well. So they would be gen alphas, right? They're all gen alpha.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Yes, they're all gen alphas, the whole range. Um, so I I don't use TikTok or Snapchat anything. The social media account I do use is Pinterest, which I mean I don't really consider that like a big social media account as far as like I don't post any content. It's mostly just like an old lady app. I used to use TikTok or not TikTok, um, I used Facebook a lot when I was younger, when it like first became relevant. And I've recently have gone back in and kind of like re-privatized everything and like deleted pictures and things like that just to make it so that it's less searchable, I guess, if if there's anything online about it. You know, being a a mother of four boys, thankfully, you know, my three youngest ones are not internet savvy at all. Um, my oldest is 12, and you know, he he does have a phone, but it he doesn't use social media. You know, he doesn't engage in really like internet use at this point. But I do know a lot of his friends use TikTok and Snapchat, and a couple of them have Instagram. You know, honestly, that kind of terrifies me. Um, just kind of like knowing the things that are on there and the way that a lot of information that kids are maybe not understanding can be used against them. Um, you know, they're just so easy to manipulate at such a young age. And I and I do think that being a part of the younger generation and and you guys kind of just like growing up in that world without anybody really understanding the harms of it, like that's you know, I I do think that that plays into the views that you your generation has about being online.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Abby is uh the the representative for the cuspers. You have any you have any thoughts here?

SPEAKER_03 29:59

Just on like privacy and social media in general.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

Yeah, so I think the main thing that I well I kind of had two points. I think one point just really quickly might be like a little too tangential. Um, but to the question of like consuming content on TikTok versus posting, I think that that is just like not a rare or uncommon dynamic. I think that that is like just kind of the reality of like almost all social media platforms is that users by and large consume much more content than they post and share. Just to like point that out. Like, I think that that is very much just like generally how these things function. Um, most people are not making most of the content. It's like a small group of people are making almost all the content. Um, so I just want to point that out. And then secondly, just like what comes to mind for me first about the question of privacy and social media is specifically Instagram close friends and sort of how I've observed that like I use that and then some of my friends can you explain what that technology is for our listeners who may not be familiar with uh close friends. Yeah, absolutely. So Instagram close friends is basically as far as I know, I think it only applies to stories, which is just you can post an Instagram story, so like a temporary we have a correction, we got a correction.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

It's stories, and you can post, we can do like a post on your feed that's also close friends. I didn't it used to be just stories, so it used to be just I will say most people use it for stories.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

For balance, like you could have like within your one account because it's like we used to have finstas. Yeah, now you can within your one account.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

You have to explain what a finsta is as well to our audiences partnership, all the terms.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

I used to have a finsta, it's still up. I don't know. It's still up, I guess. But uh I have one and one is one is a finster. Finsta is so originally the term Finsta meant fake Instagram, uh, but it wasn't a fake Instagram, it was just like your private Instagram where you would just like post whatever you wanted to post that you only wanted to select small group of people to see, basically. So, like for me, I I had one in college, so it was just like my best college friends, and I would just like post way more than I would post to my actual Instagram because it's embarrassing to post a lot on social media, number one, and then number two, yeah, just like embarrassing, like long rant things that also it kind of functions as like a group chat, but it's like just about me, the sort of how I used it in a way.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Now let's circle back to your close friends example if you're so I think Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 32:17

My assumption is they became aware that people were doing this and tried to find ways to like get people to be able to do it within one account. Um, because I'm sure it's better for them for whatever reason. But so then they add stories, which is like just 24 hour posts. So you could originally close friends was only for stories. Now you can also make close friends post on your main account.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

And a story for those people who don't use Instagram would be like a temporary montage video or photo.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

Yeah, and it just stays up for 24 hours. I think stories originally came from Snapchat, I believe. Like the whole concept of like temporary images, I guess, kind of came from Snapchat. Um, but yeah, so close friends, the way I use it is just stories because I didn't know that you could do it otherwise. Um, but again, like small for me, it's like a small group of like 10 to 12 people, um, where I just will like, for example, I just uh turn in my thesis draft yesterday. So I think as you can imagine, I've been over the past month posting on my close friends' Instagram story basically every day being like working on my thesis again. I hate working on my thesis, but like not everyone needs to see that. I just want my like 10 closest friends to know that I'm like miserable about my thesis. But I've learned uh through some of my younger friends that they have like way more people um on Instagram close friends than I do, because I think of it as like I get the I these are people I would text this to individually, but it's like this way I don't have to do that. They can just like see it when they want. But um, I have a really good friend who is also in our class where she has just like anyone that she considers kind of a friend in her Instagram close friends, and she doesn't even use it. Well, she actually kind of uses it a lot, but like some people don't even use it that often, but they have more people on it, so it kind of just becomes another layer of like normal Instagram in a way almost. I'm not sure, but that's kind of my impression.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

I definitely agree. I I think I have over like a hundred people in my close friends. Um, and that number just keeps growing because I think it is sort of becoming just a second story. I know people, my sister, for example, spends like hours perfectly curating posts for her close friends. Like I think she barely even posts on her main story. It's just her close friends has become her main story. And I I think it's also in the way we were talking about stopping sharing your location. I think adding someone to your close friends, I think Kara would agree, is sort of like a statement now. Um, where like I've gone to dinners with people that I barely even speak to, like big group dinners, and then leaving the dinner, they'll add me to their close friends. Um, I think it's just anyone that you somewhat connect with qualifies as as being added to that list. And I think people genuinely have hundreds of people on their close friends.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Does it automatically add you? Like if if somebody adds you to their close friends, are they automatically added to yours?

SPEAKER_04 35:03

No, but I will say it's definitely kind of transactional where like if I see someone that I'm like, I don't know, starting to become friends with has added me to their close friends, I'll then add them to mine because I feel like that's kind of like the nice thing to do. And yeah, and I will say with close friends, you're not able to tell if people take you off. Um, because like it doesn't give you notification or anything. You'll just kind of like, I guess if if it's someone that like continuously posted on their close friends and then you don't see a close friend story for a while, and like maybe you go to your friend and you're like, Oh, did have they posted anything on their close friends recently? Like, did I get taken off? Then that's kind of how you figure it out. But it's not like find my iPhone or like live through 60 where you'll get a notification like this person took you off their close friends.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

And I remember in in middle school or high school, since this concept started on Snapchat, like people would get into gigantic fights over being taken off of people's uh private stories, or if you added something to your private story and they didn't add you back, I remember people figured out a way, sort of like a trick to figure out if someone had taken you off. Um, and like friendships would end over this. Um, but yeah, I don't think an Instagram notifies you. This is true.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

This is true. I wanted to like talk more about Snapchat because I think it's an interesting one where I think it, in my opinion, has like the most disturbing like violation of privacy from like how Marie and I grew up as like Gen Zers. And I think um because Snapchat was like originally created to be an app where uh you send an image and it disappears, so it was almost like you had like extra privacy and that like nobody could screenshot your image without you knowing, or like save it to their camera role, like it had sort of like these layers where it was like everything that you share is like you you know where your information is going, you know what's happening to it if someone like saves it or screenshots it or et cetera, and it's supposed to be like temporary. Um, and I think because of that, it it created like this superficial like idea that what you shared was private. And uh there were a lot of like illicit images that were shared on Snapchat. When Marie and I were minors, I think both of us, I think any Gen Z person that you ask knows someone that had like, especially girls that had like their illicit images like leaked and spread like throughout the school or throughout like a social circle, starting all the way back in middle school through Snapchat. Um and I think like it affected a lot of my friends, it affected a lot of people that I know. And I think because of that, I kind of have like a not a hatred towards Snapchat, but just in case I want to work for them or something. But um, I think I'm I definitely use Snapchat the least. And like I thinking up back to it now, I'm like, wow, like that is really sad. And I know that there's been like there's been legislation passed, um, like the Take It Down Act. I went to a hearing for that um to kind of compel Snapchat and other social media platforms to like provide more protections for young girls. But yeah, I think that is like so concerning. And I can't believe that that was just going on like rampantly when I was in middle school, even.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

To touch on on what you said, and also hate but no hate, right? Um I've I've always been bothered by with Snapchat this idea of like it's like an illusion of privacy, right? This belief of like, oh well, you'll be notified if somebody takes a screenshot or tries to save this image to their camera role. But really, okay, what is a notification gonna do? The can't the the image is already saved. Are you gonna reach out to this person and say, hey, you can't have that picture? And and then what? You have no recourse, really. And so, you know, they they give this illusion to their users of oh, well, it's it's a temporary image and we'll tell you if anybody tries to save it, but you don't have any option if they do. That image is theirs now because you send it to them. Um, and so I I I always found that very interesting how people kind of bought into it um and just like accepted that as yeah, no, it's private.

SPEAKER_04 39:09

I think it kind of served almost like a deterrent where it was like if someone sent you a photo and you screenshotted it, that person would be like, What are you doing? Why are you screenshotting my photos? And like there was kind of like a social repercussion from doing that. But I will say, like, like there's a lot of ways to get around that notification where you could like take a picture of the photo with someone else's phone or another device, which like would happen a lot. And so yeah, you're right. It it was not like a sufficient protection at all. Um, and I think people viewed it as like a deterrent, but also like then I don't know, like me and like all of my friends, and I don't know, kind of as like god older, I kind of I realized and like would utilize these tactics myself where I could get around like having that notification by like using other devices, or there were like a million hacks I I couldn't even like yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

I remember people would pose like tutorials like put your phone on airplane mode, then take a screenshot, then exit out of the app, re-enter, take off airplane mode, and it wouldn't notify them. There was like a hundred ways you could get around it.

SPEAKER_04 40:07

And they would they would patch them because I remember yeah, I remember over COVID there was one where if you like swiped up and went into multiple tabs, you could like screenshot the tab, and then they patched that one, and I was like, I I did it, and I was like, oh, like I didn't realize that they patched it, and then I was like, oh no, like it's got notified, I screenshot it, whatever they said.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

No, you know, now that we've kind of talked a little bit about social media and generational differences, I can't end this podcast without us talking about AI. Every new story you see is AI. I think it's impossible to talk about AI and not talk about privacy. Um, so I'm kind of curious as to some of your viewpoints, how's it affected your school work? What are your cohorts talking about? Um, just kind of curious. Anyone want to start?

SPEAKER_03 40:53

I think uh when I think about like again connections with like privacy and personal information and things like that, I feel like this kind of has like two sides to it. It's just like I feel like these models are like continuously getting updates to make them like have more persistent memory and like be a little bit more personalized, but I don't think that they've fully figured out that balance yet. And I think part of the way that that comes up is just like everyday sort of like frustrations of like, I'm asking you to help me with this thing, like you don't need to bring up like this other project I was working on, and you keep tying it back to this other project I was working on, and like this is very frustrating. And but you could also imagine that happening with like personal information and like the lines getting blurred there, and then that kind of connects to the other thing I wanted to touch on, which is just like these models are very convincing. Um, they can communicate many different emotions and feelings, and you can kind of get into that like AI psychosis like is colloquially being thrown around, um, and just the idea that like your personal information that you share with this could like be manipulated or used against you in a very convincing way, either intentionally or unintentionally. Um, and I think like thinking about what the per personal information you share with this um system could you just don't know exactly what's gonna happen to it or how it's gonna be used, like not even in terms of like data harvesting or advertising, but just in a very literal, like actually interfacing with it on your computer.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

Yeah, I I'll say um I think specifically Gen Z, I think whether or not there are concerns about data privacy or skepticism, I think like it's very much obviously um here to stay. I think I saw a study, I think now more than half of young adults use AI every single day or at least every single week. I think initially people my age sort of started seeing chatbots as not only like a tool for um school or studying, but also like a confidant where you could ask it any single question and there was no really repercussions or afterthoughts about what that data was being used for. I I know people that share um health records or extremely private secrets. I like there's cases of people out there saying, hey, I cheated on my spouse. How should I go about telling them? Like I think people just use it as sort of like a therapist in many ways. But I I do think, and I think there's several studies indicating this, people my age, Gen Z, is becoming much more skeptical of AI systems. And whether that be for um educational reasons or privacy concerns on the privacy side, I think there's been a good amount of cases now where um like AI companies have accidentally leaked private chat conversations with personal health data. I know ChatGPT, I think uh a year or so ago accidentally um leaked a bunch of conversations, um, which even if they don't have sort of like your name, um, it's pretty easy to like de-anonymize or or re-identify individuals with the amount of data that I think people might my age are sharing with with these models. But I think even if skepticism continues to go up, um it's sort of like social media platforms. We're getting to a point where you don't really have a choice, and it's either hop on the train or you stay behind. And I think people will continue using the models regardless, maybe with some increased sort of consciousness of hey, maybe my data is getting trained and and it's out there. But I I don't think it's gonna affect usage that much.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Do you think that it will change like the the way that people interact with the chatbot? Like maybe not necessarily discontinuing use altogether, but you know, sharing less private data or you know, not using it necessarily as like a friend or confidant, but more so in a sense of like educational purposes or for work, you know, in a more like professional manner.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

I was just just quickly, I was gonna say I'd hope so, but I think again, it's it's sort of like normalized since the beginning of when my generation started using chatbots, which was like Chat GPT, we started without sort of an expectation of privacy. I don't think anyone my age was questioning where it is this data ending up, because I think that's a broader trend of people my age, right? I think I truly don't think people care much about traditional online privacy. If it's not sort of affecting their social reputation in a certain way, I don't think there's much concern. Um, so I think even if skepticism is somewhat increasing, I think unless you're constantly engaging in in thought or conversations about data privacy, I don't think it's sort of the the dead body problem we talked about in class a few times, where I think unless there's an extremely big um sort of issue or story where there's incredible amounts of social harm from a data breach or or some sort of personal data getting exposed, I I think people will continue to just not care. And I think even if people are using it in a professional setting, like I I also think there's massive amounts of data issues there. Like I'm sure there's many instances of people feeding confidential company data or or policy or et cetera, to chatbot. It's like, hey, help me write this memo. Um, I I hope that that's not happening in the government, but like, I don't know, imagine someone in like the intelligence community being like, give me an assessment on Iran's nuclear weapons. I don't know. I think whatever aspect it's sort of being used for has its risks, but I just don't think people care enough, at least in my generation.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

I think it's really I was just gonna say, I think it's really interesting that you you mentioned the dead body uh aspect that we learned about in class. And um to point to what we talked about earlier, you about the Deloitte study that Professor Ago mentioned, where, you know, a significant amount of Gen Zers have had their identities take, you know, stolen, their accounts have been hacked, and you know, just falling prey to a bunch of scams. And so it kind of makes me question like what at what point then do the younger generations look at this situation and say, you know what, like I need to stop giving my private information or I need to be more conscientious about what I'm posting online or how I'm protecting myself. Yeah, because I think like that is kind of like the dead body aspect, right? Is like you're actually like a victim to the lack of control of your private information, but still, like, is that enough?

SPEAKER_04 47:28

Um, one feature that I wanted to bring up that I had mentioned before, and really only Maria and I were aware of it, is something called Chat GPT Wrapped. Um, so for those of you that don't know, there's something called Spotify Wrapped, where at the end of every year, um, like in December or so, like before the new year, it'll Spotify will give you like a summary and like an analysis of um like the songs you listen to, like your top artists, um, et cetera, et cetera, just to kind of see like, okay, this is the music that I was into this year. Um, and so OpenAI, Chat GPT, did the same thing where you could ask Chat GPT, okay, give me my Chat GPT wrapped. And I was made aware of this because a lot of my friends were posting it on their close friends or their Finstas, as we mentioned before. And basically it gave them kind of like a summary of the information that they've put into Chat GPT, some of which they like didn't remember putting in. And it was like very accurate and very specific information that like I, as like a very close friend of that person would have been able to say. But the fact that like an AI knew that much about them um was like insane to me. Um and yeah, I think there's so much inform like personal information that my friends are constantly inputting into Chat GPT. I think one big thing for me that I'm like really concerned about, but I don't I don't see the rest of my generation sharing the same concern is like uh private health information. I think people use AI and like chatbots not only as therapists, but like as doctors. Um and yeah, it's just it's concerning for so many different reasons. Um, you guys probably can go into that better than I can, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Like I don't think that's gonna change. Like I was saying, I think personal data from my perspective um in Gen C is sort of treated as a currency nowadays, which can be exchanged either for like social relevance or convenience. I think so long as I don't know, let's say someone has a a personal health question, even if they're extremely aware of the risks associated with putting a photo of of something into Chat GPT or giving it health records, so so long as that provides, I think, more convenience and sort of like an easier way to get an answer to something, as opposed to like booking a health appointment or something, I think people will continue to trade personal privacy for for convenience in in the context of chatbots or or uh large language models, or in the case of social media, for social relevance. I I truly think it's become a currency that that people are willing to just give up um for one thing or the other.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

And I I think I think that's a good note to kind of end this discussion on. Uh so let me just take a moment to Megan, Abby, Kira, Maria, thank you so much for sharing your time and your thoughts uh with our audience here. And to the audience, thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the privacy filter. Um and stay tuned for next time. Thank you so much.