Social Media Privacy Research Articles

Feeling Safer Than Peers: Influence of Privacy-related Perceptions and Parental Mediation on Teen Tiktok Users’ Comparative Optimism about Privacy Risks

ABSTRACT This study investigates how privacy-related perceptions and parental mediation relate to teens’ comparative optimism about the privacy risks of TikTok, and the role of such optimism in teens’ privacy management on the platform. Our online survey of teen TikTok users residing in the U.S. revealed that those who were more concerned about privacy displayed less comparative optimism. Active parental mediation further enhanced this negative association between privacy concerns and comparative optimism. We also found that comparative optimism is negatively related to privacy-protecting behavior among teen users. Study findings guide youth-serving stakeholders in honing teens’ critical orientation toward social media privacy.

Data Privacy in Social Media: Awareness and Comfortability of Mathematical Computing Course Session I 2023/2024 Sultan Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah Polytechnic’s Students

The increasing integration of social media into daily lives of individuals has raised significant concerns about data privacy. As users actively engage with various platforms, the extent to which they are aware of the privacy implications and their comfort levels with the use of personal data become vital issues. This study aimed to identify social media platforms that are often used by students, their level of awareness towards social media data privacy policy and their comfortability towards data privacy by social media companies. The respondents in this study comprises of 106 male and female students. The data are analyzed descriptively by mean, frequency and percentage. The level of awareness towards social media data privacy policy is high with average mean score 3.94, WhatsApp is the often-surfed social media platform by score of 89.62% and most students were highly comfortable with how educational social media platform used their data with mean 3.85. This study proposes the necessity of a diverse approach involving education, user empowerment, and technological advancements to enhance data privacy awareness and comfort levels among students in the realm of social media and prepare to a more secure and responsible online environment for the next generation users

To disclose or to protect? Predicting social media users’ behavioral intention toward privacy

PurposeIn the paradox of personalized services and privacy risks, what factors influence users’ decisions is considered an interesting issue worth exploring. The current study aims to empirically explore privacy behavior of social media users by developing a theoretical model based on privacy calculus theory.Design/methodology/approachPrivacy risks, conceptualized as natural risks and integrated risks, were proposed to affect the intention of privacy disclosure and protection. The model was validated through a hybrid approach of structural equation modeling (SEM)-artificial neural network (ANN) to analyze the data collected from 527 effective responses.FindingsThe results from the SEM analysis indicated that social interaction and perceived enjoyment were strong determinants of perceived benefits, which in turn played a dominant role in the intention to disclose the privacy in social media. Similarly, trust and privacy invasion experience were significantly related to perceived risks that had the most considerable effect on users’ privacy protection intention. And the following ANN models revealed consistent relationships and rankings with the SEM results.Originality/valueThis study broadened the application perspective of privacy calculus theory to identify both linear and non-linear effects of privacy risks and privacy benefits on users’ intention to disclose or protect their privacy by using a state-of-the-art methodological approach combining SEM and ANN.

Exploring Social Media Privacy Concerns: A Comprehensive Survey Study Across 16 Middle Eastern and North African Countries

Exploring Social Media Privacy Concerns: A Comprehensive Survey Study Across 16 Middle Eastern and North African Countries

The Legal and Ethical Implications of Social Media Privacy Concerns

The Legal and Ethical Implications of Social Media Privacy Concerns

A Study on the Influence of Users’ Privacy Literacy and Trust Repair Strategies on the Effectiveness of Trust Repair after Social Media Privacy Invasion

A Study on the Influence of Users’ Privacy Literacy and Trust Repair Strategies on the Effectiveness of Trust Repair after Social Media Privacy Invasion

Navigating Social Media Privacy: An Analysis of Relationships, Time Dynamics and Contextual Factors

Navigating Social Media Privacy: An Analysis of Relationships, Time Dynamics and Contextual Factors

Determining the Role of Social Identity Attributes to the Protection of Users’ Privacy in Social Media

Drawing on digital identity theories, social software engineering theory (SSE), and the Privacy Safeguard (PriS) methodology, we examined the way that personal information uploaded on social media (SM) imposes privacy issues. Throughout a review on users’ self-representation on SM, we examined the impact of self-determination and self-disclosure on users’ privacy, and we identified the social attributes (SA) that cause privacy implications. This paper specifies 18 SA that users employ to achieve their optimal level of representation while summarizing possible ways that these attributes provoke users’ identification. In particular, our research has shown that SM users represent their personas by unveiling SA to construct popular, representative, and conversational profiles. As disclosing SA increases privacy implications, we intend to help users build profiles that respect their privacy. Examining users’ SA deepens our understanding of disclosing personal information on SM while leading to a better quantification of identity attributes; furthermore, users’ top five most revealing attributes were summarized. Considering that SSE addresses users’ privacy implications from an early stage of systems designing, our research, identifying the SA, will be helpful in addressing privacy from a socio-technical aspect, aiming at bridging the socio-technical gap by drawing designers’ attention to users’ social aspects.

Social Media and Privacy in the UAE: A Survey Research

Social media is one of the most important agents of social transformation in modern times. They play a critical role for millions of people. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, are used for socializing, posting updates, communicating with friends and family members, as well as sharing photos. The platforms assist individuals in connecting with thousands of people and hence have the potential of influencing people's lives including the potential negative impact of misuse such as re-sharing someone’s data without their consent. Social media users are expected to use the social media platforms responsibly as privacy is essential in avoiding harm, distortion, public disclosure, and abuses. The study investigates privacy in social media from a legal and ethical perspective in the UAE. It addresses the concern of the users who might be oblivious of privacy, data protection guidelines and the gap in research on privacy in social media. The theoretical background is grounded in social utilitarian ethical theory as an ethical framework. The legal theory applies as it defines and sets boundaries for privacy and its different manifestations in social media.

Social Media Privacy Using EDEE Security Model

Social Media platforms have become a significant part of our daily lives and a modern way to connect friends and family, document our lives, and share other great personal information about our lives. These activities leave us vulnerable to privacy and security breach due to lapse security controls necessary to protect users' sensitive data on these platforms. We conducted exploratory privacy and security analysis on paramount social media platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat and determined that current Social Media privacy and security posture insufficient and proposed Social Media platform Security through “Educate,” “Determine,” “Enable,” and “Evaluate” (EDEE) Security model to address the evolving Social Media platform security as a growing concern in Cybersecurity for individual using the platform and companies hosting the platform.

Student-Professor Social Media Relationships: An Exploratory Study of Privacy and Trust

This article explores social media relationships between undergraduates and their professors. It addresses social media efficacy’s and social media privacy’s impact on students’ trust in both their professors and university. An online survey of 448 business students found that students who are in social media relationships with professors are more concerned about their own social media privacy and that these students are less likely to trust their professors and the university. When it comes to perceptions of professor and university trust, students’ perceptions of social media privacy are more important than their social media connections with professors. Implications are discussed.

#Healthcare: Patient and Family Uses and Perceptions of Health Care Social Media.

Although social media is becoming a primary resource for information and support in all aspects of life, including health care, limited information is available describing social media use in parents whose child undergoes surgical care. The aims of this study were to describe how patients/families use social media to address health care needs and understand their perceptions of social media privacy and reliability. A descriptive survey of 39 questions, both fixed choice and open ended, was distributed to a convenience sample of parents during their child's preoperative visit. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize fixed-choice responses. Content analysis was used to assess open-ended responses and comments. A total of 205 completed surveys were available for review. Overall, 195 (95.6%) reported using social media, with 70 (35%) using social media up to 5 times a day and another 61 (30.5%) using it 6 to 40 times a day. Respondents used social media for medical information (122/60.1%), to make health care decisions (53/26.5%), after a diagnosis (104/52%), after a medical visit (88/44%), and to update friends and family (129/65.5%). Most respondents were undecided (111/58.1%) when asked how reliable medical information was on social media sites, with 33 (17.3%) believing medical information to be "reliable to very reliable" on social media sites. Among the 61 comments received, 4 themes emerged: Spectrum of Social Media Use, Social Media and Health Care Interaction, Social Media as a Source of Support and Peer Experience, and Reliability of Social Media. Most respondents utilized social media for health care information while reporting feeling undecided on the reliability of the information. Understanding the multiple ways patients and families utilize social media provides health care members opportunities to discuss medical information, inform health care decision making, and support patient and family needs.

Privacy in Social Media

Privacy loss is one of the primary issues associated with the use of social media or social network sites. These sites operate by collecting and sharing data from users to obtain economic revenue. As a solution, it is recommended that users be informed about safe online practices and that they should behave accordingly. However, this does not usually happen, which makes privacy regulations ineffective. We argue that a top-down, control-focused approach to privacy, such as that found in the European Commission’s recent General Data Protection Regulation, does not capture the way online practices unfold and fails to prevent privacy issues. Instead, we frame privacy using the concept of the “logic of care,” an approach that promotes a situated analysis of online practices and of the diverse actors involved (users, companies, regulators, etc.). This shift favors the creation of safer interactions on social network sites instead of restrictive regulations.

Privacy in Social Media

Nowadays social networks become very common. People use social media to keep people in touch, businesses, organizations, and many more. The information you share with your friends in the social media allows them easily to keep in touch with you. However beside friends, colleges, relatives, there are many people that are interested in the private information on social media. Identity thieves, scam artists, debt collectors, stalkers, companies use social networks to gather information. Companies that use social networks for getting information about people are intended to personalize their services for the users and to sell to advertisement. In this paper we will discuss the advantage and disadvantage of using social media and what kind of information is safe to post and how to protect it.

The development and validation of a social media fatigue scale: From a cognitive-behavioral-emotional perspective.

Social media fatigue (SMF), which refers to social media users' tendency to withdraw from social media because of feeling overwhelmed, is closely related to individuals' social life and well-being. Many studies focused on understanding SMF and exploring its enablers and influences. However, few pieces of research administered a standard measurement of SMF. This study aimed to develop and validate a measure of SMF, and a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1599 participants in total. Semi-structured interviews of 30 participants were firstly conducted as a pilot study, and an initial version of the social media fatigue scale (SMFS) with 24 items was generated. Then, both exploratory factor analysis (N = 509) and confirmatory factor analysis (N = 552) as well as reliability and validity analysis (N = 508) were conducted and a 15-item SMFS was finally developed. The results demonstrated that: 1) SMF was a multi-dimension concept including a cognitive aspect, an emotional aspect and a behavioral aspect; 2) the three-dimensional structure of the SMFS (cognitive-behavioral-emotional structure) fitted the data well; 3) the McDonald's Omega coefficients for the SMFS was 0.83, suggesting that the SMFS was reliable; 4) criterion validity was satisfactory as indicated by both the significant correlations between self-rated scores of fatigue and total SMFS scores and the significant regression model of SMF on social media privacy, social media confidence, and negative feeling after comparison. Based on the Limited Capacity Model, the present study expanded SMF from a unidimensional model to a three-dimension model, and developed a 15-item SMFS. The study enriched the existing knowledge of SMF, and coined a reliable and valid tool for measuring it. Besides, concluding the typical characteristics of SMF, the study may provide some inspiration for both researchers and social media managers and operators in mitigating SMF.

Examining Factors that Determine the Use of Social Media Privacy Settings : Focused on the Mediating Effect of Implementation Intention to Use Privacy Settings

Social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook lead to potential security risks, which consequently raise public concerns about privacy. However, most people rarely make active efforts to protect their personal data, even though they have shown increasing concerns about privacy. Therefore, this study examines the factors that determine social media users’ behavior of using privacy settings and testifies the existence of privacy paradox in such a context. In addition, it investigates the mediating effects of implementation intentions on the relationship between intentions and behaviors. In the study, we collected data through questionnaires, and the respondents were undergraduate and graduate students in South Korea. After a pilot test (n = 92) and a set of face-to-face interviews, 266 usable responses were retrieved for data analysis finally. The results confirmed the existence of the privacy paradox regarding the use of social media privacy settings. And the implication intention did positively mediate the relationship between intention and behavior in the context of social media privacy settings. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first in the information privacy literature to introduce the notion of implementation intention which is a much more powerful explanation and prediction of actual behavior than the (behavioral) intention.

Management and Psychological Aspect: Teenagers' Awareness of Privacy in Social Media

Rising concern about the impact of internet usage among teenagers needs to be continuously addressed. Teenagers’ awareness of online privacy was the focus of this study on account of frequent sharing of private information in social media. This study is an exploratory research which tries to map and understand the psychological and cultural aspects of vulnerable online privacy practice by teenagers. The data were collected through a survey and interviews with high school students in Bandung, Indonesia. This study found that teenagers’ knowledge, awareness, and management of online privacy was relatively low. Psychologically, teenagers often need others to talk to. To maintain relationship, some cultural aspects, such as togetherness, friendliness, and openness to strangers were perceived as important. However, those aspects were the causes of poor online privacy practices. A call for increased media literacy and the development of cyber law that can anticipate internet-based crime especially against teenagers, were discussed.

Social media efficacy and workplace relationships

PurposeWith the increase of social media usage in the workplace as a background, this paper specifically addresses social media efficacy's and social media privacy's impact on supervisor and subordinate trust, affective organizational commitment (AOC) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) through the theoretical lens of communication privacy management (CPM) theory.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey of 337 full- and part-time workers was conducted.FindingsPath models showed that social media efficacy positively influenced social media privacy which in turn impacted both supervisor trust and subordinate trust. Supervisor trust was positively related to AOC, while subordinate trust positively influenced OCB. t-tests revealed differences between workers who have social media relationships with supervisors and/or subordinates and those workers without such relationships.Practical implicationsIf workers believe they are adept at using social media, they will also be less concerned about the company's ability to infringe upon privacy through unwanted access to social media content. If social media efficacy drives perceptions of social media privacy and indirectly influences trust and organizational outcomes then it may be worthwhile for organizations to help enhance workers' feelings of social media efficacy through professional development programs.Originality/valueThis study is the first to extend research on workplace communication privacy into the realm of social media. Social media relationships also influence the work environment. These findings can be used as information in future research as well as policy development and professional development programs.

The Social Media Privacy Model: Privacy and Communication in the Light of Social Media Affordances

AbstractPrivacy has been defined as the selective control of information sharing, where control is key. For social media, however, an individual user’s informational control has become more difficult. In this theoretical article, I review how the term control is part of theorizing on privacy, and I develop an understanding of online privacy with communication as the core mechanism by which privacy is regulated. The results of this article’s theoretical development are molded into a definition of privacy and the social media privacy model. The model is based on four propositions: Privacy in social media is interdependently perceived and valued. Thus, it cannot always be achieved through control. As an alternative, interpersonal communication is the primary mechanism by which to ensure social media privacy. Finally, trust and norms function as mechanisms that represent crystallized privacy communication. Further materials are available at https://osf.io/xhqjy/

Markers of Online Privacy Marginalization: Empirical Examination of Socioeconomic Disparities in Social Media Privacy Attitudes, Literacy, and Behavior

This study explores how traditional socioeconomic markers of the digital divide interact with new markers of marginalization when it comes to online privacy protecting behaviors. To do this, we analyze data from a representative sample of social media users in the United States. Using hierarchical linear regression, we explore the relationships between established components of the digital divide, antecedents of privacy concerns, privacy-protecting behaviors, and privacy literacy. Our analysis highlights privacy literacy as a potentially understudied dimension of the digital divide and unpacks how traditional markers of marginalization explain distinct dimensions of privacy-protecting behaviors. Moreover, our findings suggest that the privacy literacy divide can amplify aspects of the second- and third-level digital divides, when translated into privacy-protecting behaviors.