The Role of Trustworthiness Facets for Developing Social Media Applications: A Structured Literature Review

Angela Borchert,Maritta Heisel

doi:10.3390/info13010034

Abstract

This work reviews existing research about attributes, which are assessed by individuals to evaluate the trustworthiness of (i) software applications, (ii) organizations (e.g., service providers), and (iii) other individuals. As these parties are part of social media services, previous research has identified the need for users to assess their trustworthiness. Based on the trustworthiness assessment, users decide whether they want to interact with them and whether such interactions appear safe. The literature review encompasses 264 works from which so-called trustworthiness facets of 100 papers could be identified. In addition to an overview of trustworthiness facets, this work further introduces a guideline for software engineers on how to select appropriate trustworthiness facets during the analysis of the problem space for the development of specific social media applications. It is exemplified by the problem of “catfishing” in online dating.

Highlights

Developing Social MediaTrust plays a major role for the development of relationships [1]
While in this work we proposed exemplary software features for addressing trustworthiness facets based on brainstorming and creativity, we are striving to develop a structured method of how exactly software features for the trustworthiness assessment in social media can be derived from trustworthiness facets
It is assumed that the better a social media application supports its users in their trustworthiness assessment, the safer and more promising user interactions will be

Summary

Introduction

Developing Social MediaTrust plays a major role for the development of relationships [1]. Trust is relevant in the context of social media, where human relationships are initiated or deepened [3]. This is especially true for those social media applications that introduce strangers online for interactions that might shift to the offline world. Such computer-mediated introductions (CMIs) have become increasingly popular in recent years and can be found in the business sector in the sharing economy (monetary exchange against goods or services provided by private people) or the private sector, for example in online dating (the search for amicable, romantic or sexual relationships) [4].

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Discussion

Conclusion