In March 2018, news of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal made headlines around the world. By inappropriately collecting data from approximately 87 million users’ Facebook profiles, the data analytics company, Cambridge Analytica, created psychographically tailored advertisements that allegedly aimed to influence people's voting preferences in the 2016 US presidential election. In the aftermath of this incident, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with 30 participants based at a UK university, discussing their understanding of online privacy and how they manage it in the wake of the scandal. We analysed this data using an inductive (i.e. ‘bottom-up’) thematic analysis approach. Contrary to many opinions reported in the news, the respondents in our sample did not delete their accounts, frantically change their privacy settings, or even express that much concern. As a result, individuals often consider themselves immune to psychographically tailored advertisements, and lack understanding of how automated approaches and algorithms work in relation to their (and their networks’) personal data. We discuss our findings in relation to wider related research (e.g. crisis fatigue, networked privacy, Protection Motivation Theory) and discuss directions for future research.

2018年3月，Facebook-剑桥Analytica丑闻的新闻在世界各地成为头条新闻。通过不恰当地从大约8700万用户的Facebook个人资料中收集数据，数据分析公司Cambridge Analytica制作了根据心理状况定制的广告，据称这些广告旨在影响人们在2016年美国总统大选中的投票偏好。发生此事件之后，我们对30名来自英国大学的参与者进行了半结构化访谈，讨论了他们对在线隐私的理解以及在丑闻发生后如何对其进行管理。我们使用归纳（即“自下而上”）主题分析方法分析了这些数据。与新闻中报道的许多观点相反，我们样本中的受访者并未删除其帐户，疯狂地更改他们的隐私设置，甚至表达了极大的关注。结果，个人经常认为自己不受心理上量身定制的广告的影响，并且缺乏对自动化方法和算法如何与他们（和他们的网络）个人数据相关的理解。我们讨论与更广泛的相关研究（例如危机疲劳，网络隐私，保护动机理论）相关的发现，并讨论未来研究的方向。