Facebook has boxes?

I thought I'd continue my saga of thinking about Facebook, race and expression of identity that I started long ago. For reference, the other posts/papers:

• http://www.thefacebookproject.com/research/jeff/publications/missingbox.html
• http://facebookprojectqa.blogspot.com/2011/01/filling-in-missing-box.html

Some relevant statements, as I think about this now in 2012 and assign these writings as readings to my students:

1. The identity presentation and information-searching norms on Facebook have changed
2. Default whiteness is different than 'how things are in person'

Back when the paper was originally written Facebook was interested in having people fill out categorical information on themselves so the search and data-collection systems could work. It was necessary so, say, I could look up 'females in engineering from Glen Ellyn in my stats class' and also so they could observe 'males who are religious and politically conservative like [this] kind of music.' These days Facebook has tried to obscure the personal information about people when you visit their profile. You still get pictures, but the 'about' is relegated to a back page and raised concerns for privacy (and possibly apathy?) have led people to fill it out less. So, consequentially, adding a race/ethnicity/nationality category becomes a less pressing concern. It's still not there, which is a problem, but it's not as much of a denied imperative. Facebook has also intentionally made search less about specific variables applied to people - categories and tags don't appear to drive the system in the same way they did before.

This doesn't change the initial issue, however. Yes, in person people make snap judgments of what race or ethnicity others are based on appearance and this isn't a form of racism or discrimination, it's just observation. What I was taking issue with, both then and now, is that Facebook was conceived as a place where identity expression would happen, and that they built it primarily with white people in mind - those for whom race or ethnicity is likely to be less important (or, see Ethnic Options by Mary Waters, 1990, a fluid association that can even be commoditized and purchased, on, say, St. Patrick's Day).  At the time the builders were mostly male engineers who were white or Asian, and they were creating it for college-age kids, who they assumed (somewhat correctly) were (and are) disproportionately white. By forgetting about or choosing to not include a race/ethnicity/nationality category they implicitly made the statement that these things were not important and denied people the right or ability to self-assert identity in an easily (or systemically) recognizable way - when their SNS depended on it. When we see default-whiteness in person we recognize it as a form of discrimination: normalizing ways of being that are ascribed (not achieved) statuses as being superior or, at very minimum normal, expected and acceptable in this case is bad! Classic examples include band-aids being only available in certain skin tones or peach(ish) colored crayons being labeled 'flesh' color. Facebook should look to support expression of identities of all kinds, certainly ones that are recognized by giant 'non-white' (this reductive dichotomy/phrase also stinks) portions of our population.

So, what if they did add a box these days? Well, few people would notice who were already users, unless the alteration were made known to them. Otherwise probably just those setting up a new account or updating their demographic information might fill it in. A lot of people would probably put in something about their ancestry or country (or countries) of origin. Some people might fill in race, but honestly I bet a lot wouldn't want to. Some might think, "Isn't it obvious what I am?" or others might not want to be identified as the one (token?) ___ person in whatever context they operate in. It would be most employed, likely, by those who wanted to associate pride with that identity.

While it could start some good conversation on the social construction of race, I think it might run the risk or distracting us from some of the bigger power balance questions beneath. Running back to my original assertion: yes, it sucks that the FB engineers didn't give people a race/ethnicity/nationality category. But doesn't it suck more that none of them thought to do that because they initially were probably all white men? Doesn't it suck more that these colleges they were designing their SNS tool for had larger portions of white people? In other words I think some of the power and access issues operating behind all of this are the better items to interrogate - both now and then.

Questions for Collide Magazine

I was invited to give a response for Collide Magazine at Azusa Pacific University in California. Something of an update, I spose-

• What does digital identity really mean and how does it play a role in our current culture?

I think this one is pretty hard to answer. We've struggled to explain what identity constitutes and means without consideration of the internet - I think it's potentially just as complicated there too. In short I'd say digital identity is constructed, but by a different set of forces than identity in a general regard. Rather than blab about it here, I've copied an old draft of my unpublished masters paper here, check pages 22-49 for a comprehensive answer.

• How do we positively/negatively use digital identity? What are the dangers?

When identity becomes commodified and sold, codified and transferable and otherwise structured by the architecture of an interface I worry. In other words - we sell identity data to advertisers (or worse, in China it's used to oppress people), we force categorical imperatives on something innately dynamic and subjective, and the structure of systems can promote corrosive hegemonic norms (see my discussion on the missing box here - http://facebookprojectqa.blogspot.com/2011/01/filling-in-missing-box.html - there is no category for race/ethnicity/nationality on Facebook and this is a problem!).

That said I think the internet can be a place where new identities can be explored in a positive fashion. A person who identifies as gay may not be able to do so openly to their family, but could admit their sexuality openly to friends or communities on the internet, and this could be quite empowering. It used to be that the internet was a place of anonymous deindividuated people (who were actually mostly of a particular class/education/race) but now I think digital identity is regularly tied to offline identity and the internet is full of more kinds of people; Facebook was the beginning of this wave. With Facebook other people would tag pictures of you and talk to you and this data would help to construct who you were as much as your presentation of information, not unlike face-to-face life. There are exceptions to this, of course, like in fantasy videogames and comments on YouTube videos, but it is the shift.

• How has digital identity changed over the history of Facebook/your experience? Where do you see it headed?

I think it's certainly changed a lot since I studied the network. Remember I started out with it at a time when researchers, the news media and parents didn't know what it was and didn't take it seriously (2006). At the time it was the domain of college students and college student wannabes. Now I think it's become a much more international network and has been integrated into the lives of people of many ages, educations and backgrounds. I would say that the social norms of the network have become much more diverse, and with them we've seen shifts in the performance of identity.