Social Awareness of Social Media Privacy

Yumin Li
Prof. Diane Burgess
WRDS 150A 152 2020W
2020/11/17
Social Awareness of Social Media Privacy
Social media is a progressive phenomenon where some of its aspects, such as the application of warnings, personal information, and the incorporation of personal data with other websites in general, lack supervision. Researchers have examined the research status of user privacy concerns in the social media environment. The issue of user privacy is an interdisciplinary and multi-domain cross-research proposition. With the rapid development of big data and social media’s popularization, users’ information security faces unprecedented challenges. User privacy concerns have gradually become the focus of research in the information management discipline, “challenges to privacy have lately become more intensive as an issue of the public” (Sarikakis and Winter 2).
This paper will analyze the specific factors affecting social media users’ behavior and awareness concerning risks in privacy policies. One research studied the degree of understanding of Facebook users on the dangers of using the platform. The study suggests that most users post sensitive data that may be used to profile or track their identity and activities through other means. According to Nyoni and Velempini, “Third-party applications such as games on Facebook also present a threat to users’ personal data. These applications can also be used to access sensitive data as they always attempt to access users’ Facebook profiles.” (Nyoni and Velempini, 1). Many Facebook users are unaware of how the publicity of a post or comment works, and most did not understand how to shift their positions from the public to private. The findings also reveal that a more straightforward user interface helped facilitate an informed way of manipulating Facebook’s privacy controls (Nyoni and Velempini 5).
Barth et al. investigated the paradoxical behavior of social media users. They have found that many users are still unwilling to check on privacy issues despite understanding the immense risks of misusing personal data, even when they are technology-literate and financially capable (Barth et al. 65). The results’ non-uniformity raises a question concerning the factors affecting social media users’ behavior and degree of awareness.
In this study, factors such as age, gender, educational attainment, social status and background, and financial capabilities shall also be investigated to analyze the topic comprehensively. This paper shall discuss social media users’ legal consciousness, online security, and paradoxical behavior, particularly on Facebook, and correlate prior studies’ results with the said factors.
Legal consciousness pertains to how the individual understands the ideas and consequences of a particular activity regarding the law. It considers traditional socialization and reflects the legal culture in a specific group of people, community, or society. In correlating legal consciousness with privacy, two singularities may be observed: first, the way social media forces or bypasses the boundaries of disclosure, whether involuntary or voluntary, through the use of terms and condition; second,...