Social Media Profiling Continues to Partake in the Development of Formalistic Self-Concepts. Social Media Users Think So, Too.

Social media platforms generate user profiles to recommend informational resources including targeted advertisements. The technical possibilities of user profiling methods go beyond the classification of individuals into types of potential customers. They enable the transformation of implicit identity claims of individuals into explicit declarations of identity. As such, a key ethical challenge of social media profiling is that it stands in contrast with people's ability to self-determine autonomously, a core principle of the right to informational self-determination. In this research study, we take a step back and revisit theories of personal identity in philosophy that underline two constitutive meta-principles necessary for individuals to self-interpret autonomously: justification and control. That is, individuals have the ability to justify and control essential aspects of their self-concept. Returning to a philosophical basis for the value of self-determination serves as a reminder that user profiling is essentially normative in that it formalizes a person's self-concept within an algorithmic system. To understand whether social media users would want to justify and control social media's identity declarations, we conducted a vignette survey study (N = 368). First, participants indicate a strong preference for more transparency in social media identity declarations, a core requirement for the justification of a self-concept. Second, respondents state they would correct wrong identity declarations but show no clear motivation to manage them. Finally, our results illustrate that social media users acknowledge the narrative force of social media profiling but do not strongly believe in its capacity to shape their self-concept.