Measuring user confidence in social media security and privacy

Abstract

In today’s Information society it is an everyday scenario to be a part of an online community such as social media. Participation has become almost mandatory to the point of acting as a virtual extremity to one’s physical environment. This virtual extremity is the individual’s window to the outside world and vice versa. The process of being a part of social media has become very easy and user friendly where one is only a few private information entries away from communicating and connecting with the rest of the world. From the user’s perspective it may be a small price considering what it is gained from joining an online community, but with the rise of social networking platforms, arise privacy concerns regarding social networking services. It is questionable how many social media users consider the information they upload or post about online whether it’s their location, hobbies, employment places, age or any other private information. How many users actually read security and privacy terms when first registering for a social media account? What private information are individuals comfortable with entering and sharing on social networking sites? More and more loopholes are being found in social media frameworks that may compromise user’s privacy or that can be misused in a way that was not intended by the user. In 2010, the Google CEO Eric Schmidt was even quoted “… If we look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use artificial intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go.” (Snickars, Pelle, Vonderau, 2012). That line alone raised a lot of concerns and questions about how exactly is the information users put online being used.