Open AccessPRIVACY, FACE, AND SOCIAL RESPECTABILITY IN A DIGITAL CHINA
Author(s) -
Ariane OllierMalaterre
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12001
Subject(s) - personally identifiable information , pseudonym , internet privacy , face (sociological concept) , hacker , government (linguistics) , beijing , china , payment , social media , digital content , meaning (existential) , public relations , business , psychology , sociology , political science , computer security , computer science , law , social science , linguistics , psychotherapist , philosophy , finance
This study attempts to delineate $2 when they use social media, shoponline, and make electronic payments using WeChat Pay and Alipay. It is part of a book I amwriting on perceptions of privacy and surveillance in China and is grounded in an inductivecontent analysis of 58 semi-structured in-depth interviews I conducted late 2019 in Beijing,Shanghai, and Chengdu. Privacy is written with two different words in Mandarin: $2 (apersonal thing you do not wish to disclose in public akin to Western definitions) and $2(hiding a shameful secret). Most of my interviewees used the latter meaning: $2 . Privacy,thus, was $2 , understood as $2 (moral face - e.g., purchases of personal medicine,underwear and sex-related products, or weapons) and $2 (social face - eg., financialinformation). Moreover, they perceived the need to hide shameful information $2 : parentsand supervisors, or hackers who would disclose personal information, but less so an abstractentity such as the government. For instance, several interviewees felt they could “hide onWeibo” using a pseudonym, despite the real-name registration policy. These findings onprivacy may shed slight on how Chinese citizens view the digitalization of surveillancethrough facial recognition monitoring and the building of the social credit system, andcontribute to culture-sensitive surveillance research.