Open Access‘IT’S MY FAULT FOR POSTING IN THE FIRST PLACE’: HOW INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SELF-BLAME ARE SUSTAINED AND INTERNALIZED
Author(s) -
Tony Liao,
Haley Fite
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12200
Subject(s) - blame , internet privacy , ambiguity , feeling , personality , psychology , moral responsibility , social psychology , computer science , political science , law , programming language
Data breaches and data misuse are frequent occurrences in today’sdigital society and often spark debate over who should hold responsibility. While many holdthe platforms responsible when confronted with violations of data privacy, some users shiftthe blame inward for trusting the platforms and posting on them. While a large body ofresearch has dedicated itself to issues of data privacy, discourses of individualresponsibility and the internalization of user self-blame have received less attention. Thisstudy explores how users respond to unknown use of their personal data through the case ofCrystalKnows, a personality detection algorithm that generated profiles about individualsusing unknown data sources, often without the user’s knowledge. Founded in 2015,CrystalKnows claims to have the world’s largest personality database, providing and sellingalgorithmically generated user profiles, often without the express consent of theseindividuals. Interviews were conducted with individuals whose profiles appeared on theplatform (N=37) to reveal users’ reactions and rationalizations of the data collected aboutthem. Rationales of self-blame vary but commonly center issues of ambiguity concerningdigital consent and the algorithm itself. Ultimately, these contribute to feelings ofresignation often paired with the unrealistic alternative of total platform non-use. Weargue that these complex discourses of self-blame, independence/choice, andresignation/non-use as the only options are intertwined with data privacy reform efforts.Understanding the sources of self-blame and how deep it runs is an important step tointerrogating and refuting some of these assumptions, if broader reforms hope to garnersupport and implementation.