“Big brother sees you” : A qualitative study on users’ experiences with targeted advertising on Facebook

Sammanfattning: As a consequence of the exposure of scandals involving targeted advertising and data collection, privacy concerns have arisen among users of social media, in particular Facebook. Previous research studies demonstrate that consumers have little knowledge about online behavioural advertising and hold misconceptions about it. According to a recent study by Internetstiftelsen (2021), 85% of Swedish internet users are concerned about big companies collecting data about them, and most people are unaware of the extent to which their online behaviour and activities are monitored. This study aims to examine how Swedish users on Facebook experience the platform's advertisements that are tailored to them. Moreover, this study also explores users’ privacy concerns in relation to advertising on the platform. To implement this study, qualitative interviews have been carried out with eight respondents in the age group 30-50 years of age. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis to answer the study’s research questions. The theoretical frameworks that have been implemented in this study are the “Big brother effect”, the panopticon effect and the digital panopticon. These concepts about surveillance have been complemented by previous research on algorithmic decision-making technologies, privacy concerns, perceptions about targeted advertising and personalisation. Based on the conducted interviews in this study, the results show that Swedish people between the ages of 30-50 years feel that they are being monitored on the platform and this, in turn, raised concerns about a violation of privacy among some of the users, in particular when they feel that Facebook monitors private conversations or intercept them. Participants in this study are more concerned about how much and what data Facebook collects rather than data being utilised for commercial purposes. The result further showed that most of the respondents do not read Facebook's terms and policies even though they claim that they do not trust Facebook with their personal information. Users in this study experience that there is too much advertising on Facebook, while also finding it more pleasant and preferable to get ads that are based on their interests and behaviour rather than receiving randomised ads.