Group privacy management strategies and challenges in Facebook: A focus group study among Flemish youth organizations

A large body of research has studied young people’s privacy practices and needs in Facebook. Less is known about group privacy. In this study 12 focus groups were organized with a total of 78 adolescents and young adults of local Flemish youth organizations to discuss their privacy practices. Findings describe how different strategies are used to coordinate the group information flow. The study also shows how online group privacy management can be challenging because ‘implicit’ privacy rules need to be made ‘explicit’, personal boundaries may conflict with those of the group one belongs to and privacy turbulence is difficult to define.

"The usage of Facebook groups is a popular strategy among Flemish youth organizations to share group information. The youth organizations especially made use of Facebook groups to control group information by developing rules on deleting inappropriate content (e.g., a picture of a leader in uniform drinking a beer), developing rules on audience management (e.g., not accepting parents of members as Facebook friends) and the type of content that could be placed publically on Facebook (e.g., make sure that younger members have limited access to pictures of leaders that are smoking or drinking alcohol). Discussing the offline and online privacy were found to be challenging for online group privacy management: making the rules and boundaries explicit and dealing with the tension between individual and group privacy. Most replied in a negative manner and found it to interfere too much with their personal lives." (De Wolf, 2016)