Facebook is creating records — but who is managing them?

ABSTRACT

Facebook is creating records from the data that users are pouring into their profiles. This paper examines Facebook’s data practices in the context of record creation through the theoretical lens of the Records Continuum Model. Three stakeholder groups are identified in record creation: the users, the site, and third-party platform participants. This paper analyses Facebook’s data sharing practices in conjunction with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

KEYWORDS:

• Facebook
• Records Continuum Model
• records management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Bernard Marr, ‘How Much Data Do We Create Every Day? The Mind-Blowing Stats Everyone Should Read’, Forbes, 21 May 2018, available at <https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/how-much-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-should-read/#531775a60ba9>, accessed 9 August 2018.

2. Amelia Acker and Jed R. Brubaker, ‘Death, Memorialization, and Social Media: a Platform Perspective for Personal Archives’, Archivaria, vol. 77, Spring 2015, p. 3.

3. ibid., p. 4.

4. Sean Illing, ‘Cambridge Analytica, the Shady Data Firm that Might be a Key Trump-Russia Link, Explained’, Vox Magazine, 4 April 2018, available at <https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/16/15657512/cambridge-analytica-facebook-alexander-nix-christopher-wylie>, accessed 20 June 2018.

5. ibid.

6. Belinda Battley, ‘Finding Aids in Context: Using Records Continuum and Diffusion of Innovations Models to Interpret Descriptive Choices’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 41, no. 2, 2013, pp. 129–45.

7. ibid.

8. International Standard for Organization, ‘Information and documentation – Records management – Part 1: Concepts and principles’, 2001.

9. InterPARES 3 Project, ‘The InterPARES Project Terminology Database’, available at <http://www.interpares.org/ip3/ip3_terminology_db.cfm>.

10. ibid.

11. Corinne Rogers, ‘Diplomatics of Born Digital Documents – Considering Documentary form in a Digital Environment’, Records Management Journal, vol. 25, no. 1, 2015, p. 11.

12. Acker and Brubaker, p. 4.

13. Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd, ‘Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog’, Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs, 2004, available at <https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/172818>, accessed 15 April 2018, p. 9.

14. Battley, p. 134.

15. James Vincent, ‘Academic Who Collected 50 million Facebook Profiles: We thought we were doing Something Normal’, The Verge, 21 March 2018, available at <https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/21/17146342/facebook-data-scandal-cambridge-analytica-aleksandr-kogan-scapegoat>, accessed 20 July 2018.

16. Facebook, ‘Facebook Platform Policy’, 2018, available at <https://developers.facebook.com/policy>, accessed 1 August 2018.

17. Miller and Shepherd, p. 6.

18. Luciana Duranti, ‘Structural and Formal Analysis: The Contribution of Diplomatics to Archival Appraisal in the Digital Environment’, in Jennie Hill (ed.), The Future of Archives and Recordkeeping: A Reader, Facet Publishing, London, 2011, p. 10.

19. Tamsin McMahon, ‘The long road to fixing Facebook’, The Globe and Mail, 12 March 2018, available at <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/the-long-road-to-fixingfacebook/article38268627/>, accessed 20 June 2018.

20. Facebook, ‘Terms of Service’, 2018, available at <https://www.facebook.com/terms.php>, accessed 8 August 2018.

21. Tarleton Gillespie, ‘The politics of “platforms”’, 2010, available at <http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444809342738?journalCode=nmsa>, accessed 15 April 2018.

22. McMahon.

23. Gillespie, p. 349.

24. Facebook, ‘Platform Policy’.

25. ibid.

26. Facebook, ‘Data Policy’, available at <https://www.facebook.com/policy.php>, accessed 12 August 2018.

27. ibid.

28. Vincent.

29. Rogers, p. 8.

30. Heather MacNeil, ‘Contemporary Archival Diplomatics as a Method of Inquiry: Lessons Learned from Two Research Projects’, Archival Science, vol. 4, December 2004, p. 201.

31. Brent Bambury, ‘Data Mining Firm Behind Trump Election Built Psychological Profiles of Nearly Every American Voter’, CBC News, 20 March 2018, available at <http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-359-harvey-weinstein-a-stock-market-for-sneakers-trump-s-data-mining-the-curious-incident-more-1.4348278/data-mining-firm-behind-trump-election-built-psychological-profiles-of-nearly-every-american-voter-1.4348283>, accessed 19 April 2018.

32. Chris Aldridge (Host), ‘BBC4 Daily Broadcast’, 21 March 2018, available at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09vyvxk#play>, accessed 15 April 2018.

33. Sari Mäkinen and Pekka Henttonen, ‘Motivations for Records Management in Mobile Work’, Records Management Journal, vol. 21, no. 3, Winter 2011, p. 189.

34. Jeff John Roberts, ‘Facebook Has Been Hit By Dozens of Data Lawsuits. And This Could be Just the Beginning’, Fortune, 30 April 2018, available at <http://fortune.com/2018/04/30/facebook-data-lawsuits/>, accessed 10 August 2018.

35. Deepa Seetharaman and Katherine Bindley, ‘Facebook Controversy: What to Know About Cambridge Analytica and Your Data’, The Wall Street Journal, 23 March 2018, available at <https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-scandal-what-to-know-about-cambridge-analytica-and-your-data-1521806400>, accessed 17 August 2018.

36. Chris Aldridge (Host), ‘BBC4 Daily Broadcast’, 21 March 2018, available at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09vyvxk#play>, accessed 15 April 2018.

37. Mäkinen and Henttonen, p. 192.

38. European Commission, ‘2018 EU reform of data protection rules’, 2018, available at <https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/justice-and-fundamental-rights/data-protection/2018-reform-eu-data-protection-rules_en, accessed 25 June 2018.

39. Derek Scally, ‘Max Schrems Files First Cases under GDPR Against Facebook and Google’, The Irish Times, 25 May 2018, available at <https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/max-schrems-files-first-cases-under-gdpr-against-facebook-and-google-1.3508177>, accessed 10 August 2018.

40. Alex Hern and David Pegg, ‘Facebook fined for Data Breaches in Cambridge Analytica Scandal’, The Guardian, 11 July 2018, available at <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/11/facebook-fined-for-data-breaches-in-cambridge-analytica-scandal>, accessed 15 August 2018.

41. Facebook, ‘Data Policy’.

42. European Commission.

43. ISO, 2001, p. 11.

44. Mäkinen and Henttonen.

45. Mark Zuckerberg, ‘Bringing the World Closer Together’, Facebook, 22 June 2017, available at <https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/bringing-the-world-closer-together/10154944663901634/>, accessed 18 August 2018.

46. Elie Meixler, ‘We Have a Basic Responsibility to Protect Peoples’ Data. Mark Zuckerberg Addresses Data Crisis’, CNN, 22 March 2018, available at <http://time.com/5210191/mark-zuckerberg-cnn-facebook-cambridge-analytica-data/>, accessed 22 June 2018.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dominique Glassman

Dominique Glassman has successfully completed her Master of Information at the University of Toronto's iSchool. Her chosen concentration was Archives and Records Management. She is interested in issues around access and privacy for digital records and information systems.