TRANSPARENCY OF FACEBOOK AND LINKEDIN

TRANSPARENCY OF FACEBOOK AND LINKEDIN 2

Table of Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................................3

Discussion........................................................................................................................................3

Transparency forms and Practices adopted by Linkedin.............................................................3

Transparency forms and Practices adopted by Facebook............................................................5

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6

References........................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
The concept of transparency is multifaceted with a long history spanning the domains of

institutional design and government policies. Transparency within the context of social media

context underpins the aspects of openness, accountability, surveillance and clear communication.

The present-day trends in social media advertising stress greater emphasis upon the factors of

surveillance and openness over other contingent factors such as accountability and predictability.

In this context, it becomes imperative to emphasize that targeted advertising practices within the

purview of social media have triggered privacy concerns amongst platform owners and

employers owing to the opacity associated with the targeted advertising mechanism thereby

leading to struggles in managing online identities. The present report has been prepared to

underline the need for transparency to ensure privacy and confidentiality of consumer

information in the case of social media platforms such as Linkedin and Facebook and stresses

upon the requisite measures that need to be undertaken in regards to the transparency practices

and upon the forms of transparency within social media in general.

Discussion

Transparency forms and Practices adopted by Linkedin

The increased proliferation of political interference within the social media platform Linkedin

has become a pressing issue necessitating the platform to adopt novel tools and techniques that

facilitate understanding of the underlying reasons for targeting online identities operating across

the platform (Andreou et al., 2018). This involves disclosing confidential and behavioural data as
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part of the socializing process. In this regard, it has to be emphasized that the primary concern

arises in light of the fact that users are largely unaware of the reasons that motivate data

advertising platforms to publish ad targeting. The resulting lack of transparency has motivated

government regulators and policymakers to enforce regulations by introducing laws to monitor

transparency issues arising within the social media platform. The ad mechanisms based on ad

impressions are reliant upon the fact as to how Linkedin infers target user data. This

informational content pertaining to social demographics, online identities, web-browsing traces

have prompted transparency monitoring measures which can be ascertained on grounds of the

events that prompted Linkedin to debar the “cluster of accounts” that invoked the use of fake

profiles for networking with US political member groups (Bitiktas & Tuna, 2020). Moreover,

Linkedin has also expelled several political advertisements as part of the campaign geared

towards removing politically motivated groups. Moreover, the information of social

demographics imparts added benefits upon social media marketers as it will benefit the business

by procuring greater insights about competitor actions based on the utility of Linkedin

advertisements.

Linkedin incorporates the use of Big data practice by circumnavigating every move that users

make upon their website which includes every page view, every click and every interaction

amongst members. It utilizes machine learning strategies to refine its algorithms and make

optimal suggestions for users. In this regard, it has to be stressed that Linkedin utilizes stream

processing technology which ensures the most up-to-date display of user information when users

are available on the website (Honora, Chih & Wang, 2022). This entails user information such as

information of users who joined the site, new jobs acquired and useful articles that user contacts
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have either shared or liked. The consistent streaming of data makes the site more useful and

interesting for users while also strengthening the associated analytics processes.

Transparency forms and Practices adopted by Facebook

The transparency forms of Facebook practices are primarily geared towards facilitating and

promoting personal self-representation. The digital architectures deployed entail the

improvement of accountability and transparency of advertising systems by incorporating novel

requirements designed to tailor custom audiences and by the removal of partner categories. This

typically entails targeting methods invoked by advertisers to study and analyze user response to a

particular advertisement (Potgieter, & Doubell, 2018). There are primarily three responsible

components involved namely the processes of data interference, audience selection and user ad-

matching processes. The "data inference" processes underpin the learning and understanding of

user attribute--- using raw user data such as pages liked, profile information uploaded and web

browsing activity and use of data inference algorithms and selection of targeting attributes. The

processes underlying audience selection enable advertisers to succinctly express the target

audience for receiving their ads. The user ad-matching process examines the various

advertisement campaigns uploaded by different advertisers stressing the variables such as user

bids, the time interval for their bid and running an auction to determine the selection of particular

advertisements (Reiberg, 2021). The aforementioned processes will enable offline event sets and

Facebook, in particular, to track and monitor signals across both offline and online channels

thereby enabling businesses to understand their interaction with people.

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In this context, it has to be emphasized that Big data practices have been invoked by Facebook

with the aim of selling products and services to consumers. Facebook is reliant upon open-source

software technology documentation wherein data collected by various users browsing Facebook

are utilized to match with companies selling and merchandising services and products (Ruparel

et al., 2020). The extensive APIs (Application Program interfaces) enacted with Facebook user

data enable gathering data about users for use by developers based on target ads meted to their

own customers.

Conclusion
To conclude, the proposed report that has been prepared outlined the transparency issues both in

terms of form and transparency practices adopted by social media platforms such as Linkedin

and Facebook. The political interference based on the acquisition of social demographic data has

been emphasized and solutions invoking Machine learning techniques such as stream processing

technology has been emphasized in the case of Linkedin. On the other hand, Facebook

incorporates transparency measures mainly in the form of personal self-representation. To

connect businesses selling services and products, Facebook focuses on open source software

technical documentation.
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References
Andreou, A., Venkatadri, G., Goga, O., Gummadi, K., Loiseau, P., & Mislove, A. (2018,

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Bitiktas, F., & Tuna, O. (2020). Social media usage in container shipping companies: Analysis of

Facebook messages. Research in Transportation Business & Management, 34, 100454.

Retrieved from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210539519301464

Honora, A., Chih, W. H., & Wang, K. Y. (2022). Managing social media recovery: The

important role of service recovery transparency in retaining customers. Journal of Retailing and

Consumer Services, 64, 102814. Retrieved from:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698921003805

Potgieter, A., & Doubell, M. (2018). Authentic personal branding is not your social media

page. Journal of Contemporary Management, 9(4), 1-13. Retrieved from:

http://www.bapress.ca/jcm/jcm-article/Authentic%20personal%20branding%20is%20not

%20your%20social%20media%20page%20Final%20edited%2019%20December%202018.pdf

Reiberg, A. (2021). Transparency and surveillance of end users on social media platforms. Trust

and Transparency in an Age of Surveillance. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com/books?

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Ruparel, N., Dhir, A., Tandon, A., Kaur, P., & Islam, J. U. (2020). The influence of online

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