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94 Iowa L. Rev. 1137 (2008-2009)
Saving Facebook

handle is hein.journals/ilr94 and id is 1145 raw text is: Saving Facebook James Grimmelmann* ABSTRACT: This Article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the law and policy of privacy on social network sites, using Facebook as its principal example. It explains how Facebook users socialize on the site, why they misunderstand the risks involved, and how their privacy suffers as a result. Facebook offers a socially compelling platform that also facilitates peer-to-peer privacy violations: users harming each others' privacy interests. These two facts are inextricably linked; people use Facebook with the goal of sharing information about themselves. Policymakers cannot make Facebook completely safe, but they can help people use it safely. The Article makes this case by presenting a rich, factually grounded description of the social dynamics of privacy on Facebook. It then uses that description to evaluate a dozen possible policy interventions. Unhelpful interventions-such as mandatory data portability and bans on underage use-fail because they also fail to engage with key aspects of how and why people use social network sites. On the other hand, the potentially helpful interventions-such as a strengthened public-disclosure tort and a right to opt out completely-succeed because they do engage with these social dynamics. I. INTRO DU CTIO N ..................................................................................... 1139 A . DEFINITIONS ................................................................................... 1142 B . FACEBOOK ...................................................................................... 1144 * Associate Professor of Law, New York Law School. Aislinn Black, Robert Blecker, Elise Boddie, Tai-Heng Cheng, Stephen Ellmann, Diane Fahey, Lauren Gelman, Doni Gweritzman, Chris Hoofnagle, H. Brian Holland, Molly Beutz Land, Jan Lewis, William McGeveran, Rebecca Roiphe, and Clay Shirky provided helpful comments. Earlier versions of this Article were presented at the Social Media and the Commodification of Community workshop at the University of Haifa in May 2008 and at a DIMACS/DyDAn Workshop on Internet Privacy in September 2008. AfterJanuary 1, 2010, this Article will be available for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ us/. All otherwise-undated websites in footnotes were last visited on March 17, 2009. The description of Facebook's activities is current as of March 17, 2009. Internet citations are formatted according to conventions suggested by the author, which may be found at http:// james.grimmelmann.net/essays/CitationPrinciples.pdf. 1137

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