The Costs of Not Using Data: Balancing Privacy and the Perils of Inaction
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2019]
THE COSTS OF NOT USING DATA: BALANCING
PRIVACY AND THE PERILS OF INACTION
Gabe Maldoff and Omer Tene**
INTRODUCTION
On May 2, 2017, a teenage girl in Macon, Georgia, swallowed a hand-
ful of pills, placed a plastic bag over her head, and turned on Facebook
Live.' Suicide is the second leading cause of death among teens in the
United States, and teenage girls are particularly vulnerable.2 The Georgia
teen could have been another statistic, broadcast on Facebook Live for the
world to see. But while some critics blame social media for the rise in teen
suicides,3 in this case, the online platform helped save the teen's life.
Friends who had seen the broadcast promptly reported it to police. Police
also relied on social media to locate the girl (she was at her grandmother's
home). Within forty minutes, they were on the scene and the girl was
brought to a hospital to recover.
What if the teen's friends had not seen the video and been able to in-
tervene? What if no one was watching? The reality of the online world is
that there is always someone-or something-watching. Entire business
models are built around tracking our every move and showing each of us
the content best suited to algorithmically determined needs and wants. But,
what if Facebook's algorithms had purposefully chosen to bury the
livestream below the daily barrage of news stories and cat photos that inun-
date our feeds? Conversely, if Facebook had the ability to digest the vid-
eo's content-a growing possibility as voice recognition and machine
learning technologies improve-could it have had a duty to intervene?
. Associate, Bird & Bird, London, formerly westin Research Fellow, International Association
of Privacy Professionals.
.. Vice President, Research and Education, International Association of Privacy Professionals, and
Senior Fellow, Future of Privacy Forum.
Teen Attempts Suicide on Facebook Live, Saved by Deputies, USA TODAY (May 5, 2017, 8:01
AM), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/04/facebook-live-suicide-attempt-
thwarted-deputies/311252001/.
2 Rae Ellen Bichell, Suicide Rates Climb In U.S., Especially Among Adolescent Girls, NPR (Apr.
22, 2016, 12:02 AM), htp://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/201 6/04/22/474888854/suicide-rates-
climb-in-u-s-especially-among-adolescent-girls.
3 David D. Luxton, Jennifer D. June & Jonathan M. Fairall, Social Media and Suicide: A Public
Health Perspective, AM. J. PUB. HEALTH (May 2012),
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/.
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The Costs of Not Using Data: Balancing Privacy and the Perils of Inaction
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