Internet and Social networking Privacy - Essay Example

The Number 28 June Internet and Social Networking Privacy While privacy concerns is one of the most troubling issues for users of social networking sites today, this problem has been largely underresearched. Social networking sites are online communities that connect people through the Internet and Web 2.0.Facebook, MySpace, Tribe, the Classmates are just a few online social networking sites that attract thousands of people ever day worldwide. Whatever their real purpose, they enable users to upload lots of personal images, exchange messages, chat in chat rooms online, and actively share photos and files. Some sites allow informing the rest of the world about the individual’s movements. Some benefits of online networking sites include inexpensiveness and opportunities to develop individual’s social life at great pace. Apart from lots of benefits brought by the use of social networking sites, it raises serious concerns, particularly in relation to privacy and security. Research into the issues enabled to find out that users of social networking sites are exposed to embarrassment, identity hacking, stalking, cyber-bullying and blackmailing. Despite this fact users have different attitude and different levels of awareness as to privacy and risks associated with it. Lack of users’ concern about privacy risks, high reliability on social networking sites and neglect of possible privacy violation are three issues that will be discussed in this paper. Attention to these issues among the users, on the part of legislature, and the media will help increase privacy levels and protect users from undesirable intrusion into their private lives. To explore privacy concerns among modern users of online social networking sites, three recent articles have been selected. Specifically, this paper discusses the findings presented in Gross & Acquisti’s “Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Networks (The Facebook case)”, Dwyer, Hiltz, and Passerini’s “Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace”, and Abdullahi and Ibrahim’s “An Investigation into privacy and Security in Online Social Networking Sites among IIUM Students”. Firstly, the research conducted by Gross & Acquisti back in 2005 looks into patterns of revealing information found in online social networking sites and explores privacy implications. The authors build their ethos by demonstrating their expertise in both theoretical and practical aspects of social networking as well as relying on a large sample of study participants in their empirical study. Besides, the authority is established through the authors’ affiliation with one of the leading research centers Carnegie Mellon University. Apart from this, the source of publication is credible enough: the findings have been published within the ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (abbreviated as WPEC). Presumably, the intended audience is fellow researchers interested in this issue, computer science students and professionals, as well as government officials and lawyers. Clearly, this is not general public since the article if full of terms, graphs and is written in a sophisticated scholarly manner. The authors systematically cover the issue driven by exigence (the sense of urgency) of solving the problem of privacy. One of the reasons is the dramatic increase in number of social networking sites users and extensive practice of personal information disclosure which may easily be used in the interest of the third party. Hence, Gross and Acquisti identify a range of risks associated with unrestricted personal data disclosure on social networking sites and provide data of the users’ level of privacy awareness. The major claim made by Gross & Acquisti is today’s users of social networking sites, Facebook in particular, are extremely willing to share their private information through social networks while being predominantly unconcerned about potential privacy risks. Specifically, the authors say, “thirty percent of Facebook users are willing to make all of their profile information available to a random stranger and his network of friends.” (Gross & Acquisti, “Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Networks (The Facebook case). Just a tiny part of users use limiting preferences to minimize their personal profile visibility. The authors use empirical evidence of their own quantitative research to support the claims of potential risks of information disclosure, as well as to show general unawareness of these risks by the majority of users. To achieve their goal, Gross & Acquisti use mostly logos providing logical reasoning and connecting their findings with examples of their own empirical research and findings from other studies. At the same time, pathos is rarely used given the style of the article and validity of the reported research. Readers may find out the attitude of the authors or their desire to emphasize certain points by occasional use of inverted commas (as in “buddies”) and italics (e.g. discouraged). Next, the article “Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace” by Dwyer, Hiltz, and Passerini looks into the problem of privacy concern as well as trust impact on social interactions which take place at social networking sites. The authors establish their credibility or ethos through affiliation with certain higher educational institutions which seem quite authoritative despite the fact one does not know the authors’ positions there (these are Pace University and New Jersey University of Technology). Besides, the research findings have been published in Proceedings of the Thirteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Keystone, Colorado August 09 - 12 2007, which adds to the article credibility. Apparently, the intended audience is computer science professionals, representatives of the media, students, or even laymen. The latter will not be discouraged by easy-to-read writing style and division of the article text into smaller parts, which helps to follow the logics of the research without being too overloaded with references to other researches. Instead, the scholars provide a simple table to enhance comprehension. The authors focus on a narrow topic which involves investigation into differences in trust levels between two social networking websites Facebook and MySpace. Thus, they manage to cover the issue in detail. Their exigence is lack of research into trust in relation to social networking sites use and the outcomes of this lack of trust for people’s relationships. The claim has been stated clearly: trust in not a necessary condition of online relationships development unlike face to face interaction. Low level of trust and weak privacy safeguards allow favor extensive social interaction and meeting new people within social networking sites. To support their evidence, the authors use empirical data collected through the online survey and analyzed with the help of ANOVA. While methods of data collection and analysis are pertinent, the research sample appears to be quite small. According to the authors, “117 subjects include 69 Facebook members (29 male and 40 female) and 48 MySpace members (29 males and 19 females).” (Dwyer et al, “Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace”). The researchers use logos to develop their arguments and only sometimes refer to pathos through the use of intensifiers, for example “very aware”. Finally, the article by Abdullahi and Ibrahim “An Investigation into privacy and Security in Online Social Networking Sites among IIUM Students” reports on the levels of privacy concern and attitude to perceived risks among students of the International Islamic University Malaysia. The authors establish their ethos through affiliation with the institution they represent. Besides, the article has been published in a credible source World of Computer Science and Information Technology Journal (WCSIT). Judging by the source specifics, the article will be appealing to computer science professionals, students and users of social networking sites. Besides, affiliation with the Islamic institution and Malaysian context obviously make it interesting for people associated with these. Two major claims made by the authors are: most students are unaware of the threat to privacy and security while using online social networking sites and are generally vulnerable to these sites’ environment; also, those students that are aware of the risks from the third parties generally neglect this information and continue to willingly share their personal information with other users. The authors’ exegince is perceived danger of using social networking sites against the background of obvious benefits of this use for scholarly research, peer interaction, business, etc. The issue is covered in a consistent manner with reliance on previous research in the area. The claims are clear and easy to follow. Importantly, they are supported with empirical findings on the basis of the selected institution. While the selected methodology is consistent with the study’s aim, the research sample is quite limited: 160 participants. Unfortunately, the authors do not comment on differences between males and females in awareness of privacy challenges as well as attitude to the latter. This, however, does not prevent the article from presenting accurate and unexpected data. In particular, the research reveals the tendency to neglect the perceived risks of using social networking sites in an unrestricted manner despite most participants using the latter for business purposes. It is hard to disagree with the authors who recommend that “UM students should be mindful and take the issue of privacy asnd security in online network sites (OSNS) with utmost level of concern” (Abdullahi & Ibrahim 59). In conclusion, the specifics of social networking sites functioning (e.g. invite buddies function or openness of personal profile) often lead to undesirable exposure to the third parties. This, however, does not prevent most users from using the limitations on their profiles. Raising awareness among users about perceived dangers of excessive disclosure is one way to handle the situation. Some other ways should include enhancing the privacy policy of certain websites, legislative restrictions, etc. This is because studies show that users are so much willing to share that they may neglect the risks even being aware of dangers. Out of the studies discussed above, the first one seems most credible since it uses the largest sample of 4, 000 students. Besides, it has the strongest theoretical basis and a broader range of research. Works Cited Abdullahi, Hussein and Ibrahim, Jamaludin. “An Investigation into privacy and Security in Online Social Networking Sites among IIUM Students”. World of Computer Science and Information Technology Journal (WCSIT). Vol. 2, No. 2 (2012), pp. 57-61. Dwyer, Catherine, Hiltz, Starr and Katia Passerini. “Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace”. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Keystone, Colorado August 09 - 12 2007. Web. 28 June 2012. Gross, Ralph & Acquisti, Alessandro. “Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Networks (The Facebook case)”. Pre-proceedings version. ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (WPES), 2005. Web. 28 June 2012. Read More