Introduction: The Data Privacy Dilemma

Facebook‘s sprawling global infrastructure handles unimaginable data volume across its family of apps.

To put the magnitude into perspective:

• Daily active users: 2 billion
• Monthly active users: 2.9 billion
• Photos shared each day: 300 million
• Facial recognition scans per day: 100+ billion

With endless content being consumed and shared around the world, data privacy is an escalating concern among experts – especially relating to social media.

The Double-Edged Sword of Personalization

The data flowing through Facebook‘s veins fuels their gargantuan advertising empire. More data equates to more relevant and targeted ads.

But detailed personal data also facilitates niche content and connections that users crave compared to the open web. This glaring tradeoff forms Facebook‘s past, present and future.

Per a Pew Research study on online privacy perspectives:

• 81% of Americans feel risks outweigh benefits in sharing personal data
• 70% are concerned about data collection by social media sites and advertisers

Yet the average Facebook user spends 58 minutes per day on site and half of all 18-29 year-olds check Facebook when they wake up.

Users demonize data collection in surveys, but continue flocking to the platform daily regardless. Facebook and other tech giants remain undeterred, pursuing further personalized experiences fueled by data.

Now that we‘ve established context around the data privacy dilemma pervading social media, let‘s analyze Facebook‘s specific privacy controls for disguising connections…

We touched briefly on key privacy categories before focusing specifically on friends visibility. To strengthen context, let‘s explore core settings in further depth using more research and statistics around actual user behavior.

Factors Restricting Post Visibility

The most common privacy action on Facebook is adjusting post audience beyond fully public. Based on their latest data, the percentage of users leveraging various privacy levers includes:

So based on this breakdown from Facebook‘s internal metrics:

• 2 out of 3 users customize more restrictive post visibility beyond public
• Less than half of users proactively restrict access to profile info
• Only 1 in 4 users elect to disable facial recognition scans

Additionally, when asked about their comfort in sharing certain personal details with various parties, respondents noted:

Although 31% still constitute hundreds of millions of users, most draw the line at sharing friends lists and contact details more broadly.

Let‘s explore why hiding friends is a common tactic.

Motivations for Hiding Connections

There are various reasons Facebook users may want to disguise their friends list, including:

Professional connections – Keeping work-related connections separate from personal friends

Jealous partners – Preventing suspicions around innocent yet misunderstood connections

Mass friend requests – Proactively avoiding spam requests from selling connection visibility

Embarrassing connections – Hiding associations like family members that may seem uncool

Private individuals – Respecting connections who want to minimize their own visibility

Regardless of motivation, the desire for privacy boils down to perceived reputation risk. Users want to shape how they are seen by network connections. Presenting inaccurate or incomplete views of relationships threatens carefully crafted outward identities.

Tightly controlling visibility of bonds provides an insurance policy against ever-changing social dynamics.

Interestingly, other competing social networks take differing philosophical approaches to address this demand…

Comparing Philosophies Across Social Platforms

Facebook maintains relatively transparent visibility around established connections by default. Whereas other social networks pursue markedly different defaults and options:

Instagram – Owned by Facebook/Meta, still traditionally hides likes and friends lists with exceptions for those explicitly mentioned in captions

Twitter – Displays minimal info around followers and following lists unless specifically toggled on

TikTok – Originally focused solely on algorithmic feeds based on interests versus social graphs

Snapchat – Core Stories broadcast mechanism centered on impermanence by default

The transparency tendency across Facebook‘s portfolio highlights their reliance on highly visible social signals and connections powering the core news feed algorithm. Competitors lean harder on interests and machine learning models to drive relevance.

So Facebook provides options to hide friends, but still gears underlying infrastructure around public visibility…which introduces potential issues to weigh if disguising your connections.

What implications stem from hiding friends on Facebook beyond simply increasing privacy? Several pros and cons merit consideration.

Potential Advantages

Increased comfort sharing more personal updates – Could encourage more authentic and meaningful interactions by eliminating self-editing

Avoid misunderstandings about connections – Prevents tense situations explaining legitimate relationships

Enhanced selectivity around incoming requests – Reduces spam requests looking for network growth

Minimized embarrassment – Limits views of family or other awkward connections

Respect acquaintances’ desire for privacy – Honors friends who want to limit their visibility

Reduced risk of security issues – Hides contacts that could be sources of scams or hacked accounts

More efficient News Feed relevance – May slightly improve relevance relying less on friends’ signals

Mobile performance benefits – Lighter friends list data can enhance loading speeds

Overall more benefits than drawbacks depending on personal preferences and risk tolerance. But also critical limitations to understand…

Potential Disadvantages

Appearing standoffish to new friends – Visibility settings could signal distrust to prospective connections

Missing notifications and updates – Hiding friends removes their activities from news feeds

Algorithms showing less relevant content – Social signals are importance relevance cues for machine learning models

Discovering less new friends and groups – Friend recommendations help network expansion

Restricting Messenger access – Can’t message hidden friends without unhiding

Unable to tag hidden friends – Limits engagement capabilities on posts and photos

Misrepresenting true connections – Gives incomplete view of real-world relationships

The majority of drawbacks relate directly to Facebook’s infrastructure relying heavily on visible friends for feeds, recommendations and notifications. Sacrificing transparency means losing access to certain features.

Now that we‘ve weighed pros and cons, what about unintended consequences relating to external data sharing?

Hiding friends limits exposure on Facebook itself. But data still flows externally to subsidize the platform‘s free ad model. What are the implications for these third-party data ecosystems?

Facebook’s Data Broker Partnerships

Unlike Apple and other tech companies building around premium hardware, Facebook‘s business relies entirely on scaling ads. After the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed reckless data handling, the company faced immense regulatory pressure to clean up its ecosystem partnerships.

In the years since, Facebook purports to govern data access more diligently:

• Launching an internal Data Use & Stewardship team focused on understanding external usage
• Expanding Facebook‘s Terms and Data Policy to further clarify off-platform permissions
• Publicly articulating Privacy Principles to hold themselves accountable
• Developing automated systems, reviews and workflows to govern data access

But invasive practices still persist across the industry. And the financial incentive will forever skew toward selling visibility.

Per Bloomberg reporting, Facebook currently maintains active data partnerships with the following known companies:

• Acxiom
• AudienceView
• BlueKai
• Cuebiq
• Epsilon
• Experian
• Integral Ad Science
• LiveRamp/Acxiom
• Nielsen

Feeding data to these brokers opens your information to untold additional buyers and forces eager to convert privacy into revenue.

What safeguards exist against these cages of secrecy?

Unfortunately, little visibility or control around external sharing beyond blanket Terms and Policy agreements users must consent to. Which introduces another rising concern…

Ad Targeting in a Post-Roe v. Wade Era

Historically ad targeting according to demographics and interests seems relatively innocuous on surface level. But the recent US Supreme Court decision overturning federal abortion rights exposes sinister use cases.

Overnight digital privacy transformed from conceptual thinkpiece fodder into an urgent defense mechanism for millions of women.

With abortion now fully banned in over a dozen states and additional states likely, those among the 21 million Google searches around abortion each year now face grave consequences in anti-abortion jurisdictions.

Between search histories, location tracking, emails and app usage, investigators have countless digital breadcrumbs at their disposal to track activity. Even before Roe v. Wade‘s demise, security researchers uncovered widespread location data sales to anti-abortion groups from vendors like SafeGraph.

Now hiding friends seems profoundly more important if connections include prominent activists or clinic employees. Highly visible connections increase scrutiny across personal profiles and friend networks.

In essence, weaponization of personal data eliminates feelings of safety even under the umbrella of legal status quo. And hiding any allowable facet of digital presence now provides necessary psychological comfort regardless of true masking effectiveness.

Given the complex matrix of factors surrounding privacy on social platforms, there are no objectively right or wrong settings universally. Personal context guides the ideal configurations.

Use the following recommendations walking the tightrope of benefits and drawbacks when evaluating friends visibility controls:

For casual acquaintances or new friends

• Leave friends visible to enable organic connections and notifications

For professional contacts

• Add strictly work-related connections to an Acquaintances list with limited visibility

For individuals who value their privacy

• Proactively hide their profile from your friends list out of courtesy

For private individuals

• Respect requests to remove tag associations or hide connections

For contacts tied to sensitive topics

• Hide tangential connections to sensitive causes as needed

While Facebook provides toggles to hide friends, utilize selectively based on unique circumstances. Both personal well-being and nurturing your network graph guide what level of visibility suits specific relationships.