Participating through data: Charting relational tensions in multiplatform data flows

Abstract

Engagements with social media today frequently involve the use of multiple platforms, which often exchange personal data about users. We explore individuals' experiences with the flow of personal data across platforms through interviews about dating apps, often requiring integration with a Facebook account. Inductive analysis revealed complex and, at times, conflicted ideas over what appropriate behaviors around personal data should look like in multiplatform engagements—central to these tensions were the multiple relationships that must be managed through participation in these ecosystems. For example, individuals talked of resignation in relation to specific platforms and the “cost” of using free services (people:platform), a lack of clarity and agency in defining what personal data might be shared between platforms (people:platform:platform), and, of course, the role of personal data in their efforts to establish and maintain relationships with other users in these “social discovery” ecosystems (people:people). We explore how these attitudes can be understood as morally charged, drawing attention to the ways in which personal data flows can enact expectations and obligations between various sociotechnical actors in personal data ecosystems and how these compound relationships reveal the complexity and texture of multiplatform participation.