RIASSUNTO Risiede nello stesso nome di social network sites o SNS (acronimo ormai condiviso a livello mondiale) la radice di uno snodo cruciale del dibattito su queste piattaforme digitali. Il riferimento alla rete sociale, ovvero al tessuto di relazioni entro cui si svolge o su cui si basa parte della vita quotidiana delle persone, infatti, mette in gioco una delle dinamiche più importanti della socialità: il difficile equilibrio tra nascondimento e disvelamento delle informazioni relative alla propria vita personale e all’appropriatezza delle scelte e delle conseguenti decisioni e azioni che questo comporta. Il problema della privacy costituisce, infatti, da diversi anni un tema discusso in differenti ambiti disciplinari: da quello del diritto, a quello della psicologia sociale, a quello più propriamente sociologico e al contempo ha dato origine a molte ricerche empiriche sugli utenti dei social media, le loro attitudini e i loro comportamenti relativi alla privacy. Come per molti ambiti del dibattito scientifico su internet e le sue declinazioni applicative e comunicative anche il tema della privacy è stato affrontato enfatizzando via via alcuni aspetti dei SNS e delle attività che gli utenti vi svolgono. Così la stessa definizione di privacy online si è via via arricchita ed è stata riformulata in modo da tenere in conto le specificità del contesto digitale. Allo stesso modo anche l’interpretazione dei comportamenti degli utenti rispetto alla tutela dei propri dati personali spesso definiti «paradossali» sono stati via via motivati tenendo conto della complessità delle attuali pratiche «social» svolte online. Questa evoluzione è stata accompagnata anche dalla ri-definizione dello spazio sociale di network (con riferimento soprattutto a Facebook) e del suo statuto. Obiettivo di questo saggio è quello di provare a sciogliere il nodo di questo dibattito e di contribuire allo sviluppo attuale della discussione. Un contributo che si propone di osservare il problema dal punto di vista della cultura e della percezione degli utenti e non tanto da quello delle tecniche, programmi e policies (che ne costituisce uno sguardo necessariamente complementare). SUMMARY The crux in the debate over the digital platform lies in the actual name of social network sites or SNS (an acronym shared and agreed upon worldwide). The reference to social network, that is to say weaving of relationships inside which the daily life of people partially takes place, brings into play one of the most important dynamics of sociality, i.e. the difficult balance between concealing and showing information about one’s personal life, the pertinence of choices and the consequent decisions and actions which this entails. For many years the problem of privacy has been a theme discussed in many disciplinary compartments: from the legal environment to social psychology, to the strictly sociological field and at the same time it has given rise to much empirical research on social media users and their attitude and behavior towards privacy. As in many other scientific debates on the internet and its applicative and communicative variations, the theme of privacy has been handled, by underlying some aspects of SNS and the activities users have on it. In this way the definition of online privacy has been enriched and reformulated so as to take into account certain peculiarities of the digital context. At the same time, even the interpretation of users’ behavior with respect to the protection of personal data, often defined as «paradoxical» has been motivated, bearing in mind the complexity of current online «social» practices. This evolution has also been accompanied by the re-definition of network social space (with a special reference to Facebook) and its statute. This essay aims to untangle the debate and help develop current discussion. It is a contribution which proposes to analyze the problem from the point of view of culture and users’ perception, and not from the technology, software and policies point of view (which is a necessary and complementary view).

The definition of the status of space in the new media, and in the Internet in particular, has long constituted a theoretical key-point, representing a pivotal element of debate. Virtual space and its characteristics have been invoked as a driving element of the concerning new media, engaging the attention of many scholars in the 1990s. The same theme also constitutes one of the starting points to identify the disciplinary and methodological divergences in the new media analysis. Currently, one of the most interesting keys to interpret the relation between space and computer networks is that obtained by analysing the processes linking the technology to a specific culture and to the social discourse that characterises a given culture. Such a reading is particularly insightful, as its aim is that of encompassing the complexity of the intertwined strands within which a culture develops. This study therefore focuses on the space of the network and on the concept of cyberspace according to a perspective that seeks to take into consideration the numerous strands of the current debate and to address several crucial key-points. The approach to these issues will follow two directions. The first highlights a view of cyberspace as a place allowing interaction between interfaces that shape individuals’ spaces for action; the second focuses on the main forms of the conceptualisation of cyberspace as social space. The arguments put forward here allow us to state that cyberspace forges an indissoluble integration between the dimension of social space and that of the space for action, the latter being constantly crossed by flows that reshape and redelineate its geography. It is not a question, however, of a uniform space. New local dimensions become anchored in cyberspace, and they are anthropologically charged with interest, even though certainly not similar to off-line spaces.