Social Media As Surveillance: Rethinking Visibility in a

In the expanding field of communication, Facebook holds a dubious position as both friend and foe. Hailed for its connectivity and its par-ticipatory potential, it is equally criticized for its egocentric exhibition-ism and its voyeuristic gaze. And yet, Facebook currently boasts over one billion users who friend, share, like, poke, tag, message, creep, and stalk one an-other (Facebook, 2013a). Facebook’s mission is simple: to give people “the power to share and make the world more open and connected ” (Facebook, 2013b). Anyone can join Facebook. Anyone can be a watcher and/or be watched. The promise of “power” has transformed Facebook into a multimodal platform of surveillance, which blends interpersonal, institutional, aggregate, and investigative practices. In his text Social Media as Surveillance: Rethinking Visibility in a Converging World, Daniel Trottier con-siders this complex and conflicted terrain and analyzes the “mutual augmentation” of surveillance practices across user groups (p. 11). Influenced by Mark Andrejevic’s concept of “digital enclosures ” within the online economy (Andrejevic, 2004, p. 35), Trottier conceives of Facebook as a type of “dwelling ” that diverse users occupy bu