Contextual gaps: privacy issues on Facebook

Social networking sites like Facebook are rapidly gaining in popularity. At the same time, they seem to present significant privacy issues for their users. We analyze two of Facebooks’s more recent features, Applications and News Feed, from the perspective enabled by Helen Nissenbaum’s treatment of privacy as “contextual integrity.” Offline, privacy is mediated by highly granular social contexts. Online contexts, including social networking sites, lack much of this granularity. These contextual gaps are at the root of many of the sites’ privacy issues. Applications, which nearly invisibly shares not just a users’, but a user’s friends’ information with third parties, clearly violates standard norms of information flow. News Feed is a more complex case, because it involves not just questions of privacy, but also of program interface and of the meaning of “friendship” online. In both cases, many of the privacy issues on Facebook are primarily design issues, which could be ameliorated by an interface that made the flows of information more transparent to users.     

Voluntary sharing and mandatory provision: Private information disclosure on social networking sites

Private information disclosure on social networking sites (SNS) is one of the most important and active issues in the information management arena. The growing phenomenon of platforms requiring users to disclose personal information exposes the limitations of previous studies that only focus on users’ voluntary disclosure. In this study, we define two modes of users’ private information disclosure behavior: voluntary sharing and mandatory provision. Using the Communication Privacy Management theory, we built a framework to explain the impact of individual characteristics, context, motivation, and benefit–risk ratio on the user's willingness to disclose voluntarily or mandatorily. Our research shows that voluntary sharing is more likely to be driven by positive factors, such as perceived benefits, social network size, and personalization, while mandatory provision is affected by individual characteristics such as age, privacy policy, and perceived risks. One of our interesting findings is that perceived risk has less impact on voluntary sharing than previous studies suggested. When encouraging users to share information voluntarily, platforms do not need to pay as much attention to reducing perceived risk as in the mandatory providing mode, but should focus on improving perceived benefits. Being the first to classify and compare the private information disclosure modes of SNS users, our research enriches the existing literature and opens up new avenues for researchers and social networking platforms.     

Contextual integrity’s decision heuristic and the tracking by social network sites

The findings of our experiments showed that social network sites (SNSs) such as Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter, have the ability to acquire knowledge about their users’ movements not only within SNSs but also beyond SNS boundaries, particularly among websites that embedded SNS widgets such as Google’s Plus One button, Facebook’s Like button, and Twitter’s Tweet button. In this paper, we analysed the privacy implication of such a practice from a moral perspective by applying Helen Nissenbaum’s decision heuristic derived from her contextual integrity framework in order to answer the question of whether or not an online user’s privacy is being violated by this practice.     

A meta-analysis to explore privacy cognition and information disclosure of internet users

Based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), this study identifies the differences between perceived privacy risks and privacy concern. Furthermore, the study analyses how perceived privacy risks and privacy concerns affect the disclosure intention and the actual information disclosure behavior of Internet users. In addition, the study discusses the moderating effects of platform types, from the perspective of privacy elaboration likelihood. By applying meta-analyses and SEM on 104 independent studies with 42,256 samples from existing empirical studies, we attempt to systematically reveal the relationship between privacy cognition and information disclosure. The results show that perceived privacy risks can significantly reduce personal information disclosure intention, as well as actual information disclosure behavior. However, privacy concerns only affect disclosure intention, but do not have a significant effect on actual information disclosure behavior. The study also verified that platform types have moderating effects on the privacy decision making of Internet users. The findings yield important and useful implications, both for research and for practice.     

ICT环境下个体隐私感知与保护行为研究

信息通讯技术(ICT)的迅速发展使得人们可以通过微博、即时通信软件(IM)、手机终端应用及社交网络(SNS)来发布个人真实信息,网络将以往零散的碎片信息整合成完整的个体信息,造成隐私泄露现象日益严重。本文总结了个体隐私泄露的渠道和类别,通过访谈研究,分析了个体隐私感知风险以及个体隐私保护行为特征:个体特征差异(受教育水平、网络经验)导致隐私关注差异;信息关联及商业价值在不同程度上与隐私关注的变化相关;隐私关注对感知隐私风险产生影响;个体隐私保护行为(常规保护、技术保护)因隐私风险感知不同而发生变化。在此基础上,构建了个体隐私感知与保护行为模型。     

Exploring factors affecting social e-commerce service adoption: The case of Facebook Gifts

Although social commerce is an important trend in practice, relatively few research studies have explored the impact of social commerce innovations launched within social networking sites. The deployment of a gift-giving service within a social networking site provides a unique opportunity to study the intersection of technological innovations and social norms and its potential to generate new revenue for ecommerce sites. Using Facebook Gifts as a real-world context for the study, we explore the factor structure of salient user beliefs influencing usage intention, and examine the relationships between beliefs and intention to use the service in a broader nomological network. Instead of adopting constructs from existing models, we started with the elicitation of salient beliefs and proceeded with successive stages of refinement to develop a suitable model. The empirical results show countervailing effects of perceived social utility and perceived convenience of the service on one hand, and low perceived value and privacy concerns on the other. A notable finding is the potential conflict arising between the expectations of effort associated with the procurement of a gift and the common perception of technology as reducing the required effort. The net result is that a technology-mediated gift service in the context of a social networking site runs counter to the social norms associated with traditional gift exchanges. This insight provides evidence of the dual challenge for social commerce initiatives. In order to be successful, new services in this area must leverage the potential of the technology as well as social practices.     

A Comprehensive Theoretical Framework for Personal Information-Related Behaviors on the Internet

Although there is near consensus on the need for privacy, the reality is that people's attitude toward their personal information privacy is complex. For instance, even when people claim that they value their information privacy, they often trade their personal information for tangible or intangible benefits. In this article, the research on different ways in which people respond to risks to privacy is examined. They include information seeking to reduce uncertainty, the withholding of information, and the provision of fabricated information. The impact of trust and inducements on Internet users’ willingness to share personal information is also examined. Thereafter, important postulates from theories in communication, social psychology, and sociology are synthesized into a comprehensive theoretical framework for personal information-related behaviors in the online environment.     

“But the data is already public”: on the ethics of research in Facebook

In 2008, a group of researchers publicly released profile data collected from the Facebook accounts of an entire cohort of college students from a US university. While good-faith attempts were made to hide the identity of the institution and protect the privacy of the data subjects, the source of the data was quickly identified, placing the privacy of the students at risk. Using this incident as a case study, this paper articulates a set of ethical concerns that must be addressed before embarking on future research in social networking sites, including the nature of consent, properly identifying and respecting expectations of privacy on social network sites, strategies for data anonymization prior to public release, and the relative expertise of institutional review boards when confronted with research projects based on data gleaned from social media.     

Effect of penitence on social media trust and privacy concerns: The case of Facebook

Abuse of information entrusted to organizations can result in a variety of privacy violations and trust concerns for consumers. In the event of violations, a social media brand or organization renders an apology – a form of social account – to alleviate users’ concerns and maintain user membership and engagement with the platform. To explore the link between apology offered by a social media brand or organization and the users’ trust dynamics in the brand’s services, we study how organizational integrity can contribute to reducing individuals’ privacy concerns whiles increasing or repairing their trust. Drawing on organizational behavioral integrity literature, our proposed research model suggests that the persuasiveness of an apology following a data breach affects users’ trust or spillover trust through their perceptions of the degree of alignment between the words in the apology and the actions of the violating entity. Based on a survey of Facebook users, our findings show that persuasiveness of an apology has a significant impact on users’ perceptions of the alignment between the social media brand’s (i.e. Facebook) words and subsequent actions. These perceptions impact social media brand trust (i.e. users’ trust in Facebook and allied services such as Instagram). We also find that, post data breach incidence, while integrity of the social media organization partially mediates the relationship between persuasive apology and users’ trust, it fully mediates the relationship between the persuasive apology and the privacy concerns expressed by the users. However, users’ privacy concerns do not contribute much to the repair of trust needed to maintain their membership.     

社会网络应用中数据迁移的隐私风险模式研究

由于在社会网络应用程序站点上自愿添加个人身份信息的人数不断增加,站点服务商可以从中获益,但是同时数据误用的风险会威胁个人用户的隐私信息以及服务商的商业模式。本文根据最近的调查,分析了开发隐私保护社会网络应用的主要需求,在此基础上提出了隐私风险模式,以增强数据或社会网络迁移过程中的信息隐私保护。通过确定与个人身份信息迁移过程中重要的问题设计出了该隐私风险模式。     

Privacy perception and protection on Chinese social media: a case study of WeChat

In this study, the under-examined area of privacy perception and protection on Chinese social media is investigated. The prevalence of digital technology shapes the social, political and cultural aspects of the lives of urban young adults. The influential Chinese social media platform WeChat is taken as a case study, and the ease of connection, communication and transaction combined with issues of commercialisation and surveillance are discussed in the framework of the privacy paradox. Protective behaviour and tactics are examined through different perceptions of privacy in the digital age. The findings of this study suggest that users possess certain amount of freedoms on WeChat. However, users’ individual privacy attitudes and behaviour in practice suggest they have a declined sense of their own freedom and right to privacy. A privacy paradox exists when users, while holding a high level of concerns, in reality do little to further the protection of their personal information on WeChat. We argue that once a user has ingrained part of their social engagement within the WeChat system, the incentive for them to remain a part of the system outweighs their requirement to secure their privacy online as their decision-making is largely based on a simple cost-benefit analysis. The power and social capital yielded via WeChat is too valuable to give up as WeChat is widely used not only for private conversations, but also for study or work-related purposes. It further blurs the boundaries between the public, the professional and the private, which is a rather unique case compared with other social media around the world.     

学术社交网络中iSchool成员用户结构与利用差异分析

[目的/意义]学术社交网络是开展知识交流与学术合作的重要平台，对iSchool成员用户的研究有助于图情学科研究人员合理利用学术社交网络。[方法/过程]本文以ResearchGate （RG）为例，采集61所iSchool成员机构的用户行为数据，依据被关注—关注比例指标进行用户细分，并从地区与层级角度对用户结构及利用差异进行比较分析。[结果/结论]地区角度，北美机构拥有较多明星型用户且注重展现与互动，亚太机构用户则更倾向于搜寻信息；层级角度，iCaucus机构用户更偏好学术资源分享，低层级机构用户跟踪获取学术资源的需求则更普遍。此外，iSchool成员机构能被RG指标进行良好的层级区分，学术影响力和层级领先的机构表现出更大的学术影响，因此应进一步合理拓展对学术社交网络的利用。     

Approach or avoid? The dualistic effects of envy on social media users’ behavioral intention

People express themselves through posts or selfies with brands and activities on social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook and Instagram. This user-generated content provides adequate social information that may elicit the emotions of users who are exposed to such content on these online platforms. Although academic researchers have focused on factors affecting users’ emotions on SNSs, how users reconcile both positive and negative emotions to their attitude and behavior in triadic interactions remains unclear. The current study attempted to answer this research question through the lens of social comparison theory by investigating the effects of tie strength and focus of attention as two forces eliciting online social comparisons on emotional consequences measured through pleasure and envy. Moreover, the dualistic effects of the two distinct types of envy, namely benign and malicious, and the effect of pleasure on users’ approach and avoidance behavior were explored and hypothesized. The results indicated that strong ties triggered more benign envy compared with malicious envy. Furthermore, benign envy positively affected brand attitude and SNS avoidance in terms of exhaustion, whereas malicious envy negatively influenced brand attitude and increased the likelihood of SNS avoidance in terms of both exhaustion and discontinuance.     

Antecedents of privacy calculus components in virtual health communities

Over the past decade, social media technologies have become effective tools not only for entertainment, but also for online health communications. In virtual health communities (VHCs), the members often share their personal health information (PHI) with other members. These information exchanges provide benefits to both the information providers as well as the recipients. The PHI disclosure, however, may entail privacy concerns. Our study used the privacy calculus model to examine the trade-off between individuals’ expected benefits and privacy concerns when disclosing PHI in social media environments. Our results showed that age, health status, and affective commitment influence the balance between the information disclosure drivers and barriers in the privacy calculus model. More specifically, we found that among members of VHCs, healthier people expect to receive fewer personal benefits of communicating PHI in social media environments. Moreover, individuals who are emotionally attached to online communities expect to both receive and provide more benefits while communicating PHI in those communities. We also observed that individuals who are familiar with but not members of VHCs, especially those who are young and healthy, are more concerned about their PHI privacy in online communities.     

实名SNS社交网络与微博的特征分析——以人人网与新浪微博为例

以人人网和新浪微博为例,通过SPSS统计软件分析比较实名SNS社交网络与微博的功能特征与用户行为特点。研究认为人人网用户活跃度与用户本身隐私保护意识有一定联系;新浪微博用户活跃度与用户的学历存在一定联系。人人网与新浪微博同时存在用户被动接收推送广告信息问题,影响了用户的体验度。探讨了人人网与新浪微博的商业化运营趋势,为实名社交网站和微博的完善与差别化发展提供了理论依据。     

Privacy threat model for data portability in social network applications

The advent of the participatory Web and social network applications has changed our communication behaviour and the way we express ourselves on the Web. Social network application providers benefit from the increasing amount of personally identifiable information willingly displayed on their sites but, at the same time, risks of data misuse threaten the information privacy of individual users as well as the providers’ business model. From recent research, this paper reports the major requirements for developing privacy-preserving social network applications and proposes a privacy threat model that can be used to enhance the information privacy in data or social network portability initiatives by determining the issues at stake related to the processing of personally identifiable information.     

从Google搜索引擎的使用安全谈个人信息的保护

本文论述了Google如何收集用户信息,黑客如何通过高级操作符获取用户的敏感信息并通过Google搜索服务器漏洞信息进行攻击,为用户正确使用Google进行了警示。文章最后提出了通过提高用户防范意识,个人隐私技术手段保护,服务器保护,和政策法规保护等方面来防范Google黑客对用户信息的侵犯。     

Unfolding the popularity of video conferencing apps – A privacy calculus perspective

Video conferencing (VC) applications (apps) have surged in popularity as an alternative to face-to-face communications. Although VC apps offer myriad benefits, it has caught much media attention owing to concerns of privacy infringements. This study examines the key determinants of professionals’ attitude and intentions to use VC apps in the backdrop of this conflicting duality. A conceptual research model is proposed based on theoretical foundations of privacy calculus and extended with conceptualizations of mobile users’ information privacy concerns (MUIPC), trust, technicality, ubiquity, as well as theoretical underpinnings of social presence theory. Structural equation modeling is used to empirically test the model using data collected from 484 professionals. The study offers insights regarding the trade-offs that professionals are willing to make in the face of information privacy concerns associated with VC apps. Based on the findings, the study emphasizes the promotion of privacy protection at the organizational level, control mechanisms that motivate employees to actively engage in privacy protection behavior, and a multi-faceted approach for data transparency within the VC app platforms.     

An empirical testing of user stereotypes of information retrieval systems

Stereotyping is a technique used in many information systems to represent user groups and/or to generate initial individual user models. However, there has been a lack of evidence on the accuracy of their use in representing users. We propose a formal evaluation method to test the accuracy or homogeneity of the stereotypes that are based on users' explicit characteristics. Using the method, the results of an empirical testing on 11 common user stereotypes of information retrieval (IR) systems are reported. The participants' memberships in the stereotypes were predicted using discriminant analysis, based on their IR knowledge. The actual membership and the predicted membership of each stereotype were compared. The data show that “librarians/IR professionals” is an accurate stereotype in representing its members, while some others, such as “undergraduate students” and “social sciences/humanities” users, are not accurate stereotypes. The data also demonstrate that based on the user's IR knowledge a stereotype can be made more accurate or homogeneous. The results show the promise that our method can help better detect the differences among stereotype members, and help with better stereotype design and user modeling. We assume that accurate stereotypes have better performance in user modeling and thus the system performance.Limitations and future directions of the study are discussed.     

Examining gender differences in people’s information-sharing decisions on social networking sites

Information systems research provides increasing evidence that women and men differ in their use of information technology. However, research has not sufficiently explained why these differences exist. Using the theory of reasoned action and social role theory, this paper investigates gender differences in people’s decisions about information sharing in the context of social networking sites (SNSs). We developed a comparative model of the information-sharing decision process across genders and theoretically explained why these differences exist. Data was collected from an online survey taken by American SNS users. We found that privacy risks, social ties, and commitment were more important in the formation of attitudes toward information sharing for women than men. Gender significantly moderates the relationship between people’s perceptions of information sharing and their intention to share information. This paper provides an enhanced understanding of gender differences in people’s decisions about sharing information on SNSs. It advances gender differences research into the use of newly emerged information technology and provides researchers insightful views of the role that gender plays in the social media era. Being aware of the research findings, practitioners may better engage their targeted stakeholders on SNSs and collect more useful information for business purposes.