Social Networking Without Sacrificing Privacy

Abstract

Social media is a De Facto standard in online communication. When users interact with others on a large scale, privacy plays an increasingly important part in maintaining safety and user confidence in a social media platform. Allowing end-users to control their interactions and data with others is a way to inspire end-user confidence. Many control schemes exist; however, they are flawed on two key points. These systems are somewhat confusing to the end users in that the users may not understand exactly what information is being shared with others and that the control schemes are hidden and abstract. In this project, we propose an idea with a prototype, named Solendar, that attempts to solve the issue with a special authorization approach. It has a pass system which allows end-users to explicitly specify which users are able to see and interact with their information on individual level. It has a group system that builds on the pass system, allowing end-users to organize other users into logical segments for effective information sharing while retaining the control of privacy.