Users’ Awareness of Privacy on Online Social Networking sites – Case Facebook

Sociology
Users’ Awareness of Privacy on Online Social Networking sites – Case Facebook
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Sociology
Abstract
Generally, the online social network has gathered easy, new and cheap ways of maintaining the
existing relationship between the users and other people. However, the increasing actions in
online platforms give rise to issues related to the concept of risk and privacy (Aghasian et al.,
2017).In order to understand the factors which influence users to reveal their private information,
the study will focus on behaviors which checks the perspectives of the information disclose and
privacy protection. The empirical study anticipates targeting more than 250 participants who use
Facebook as an only online platform for sharing ideas and other issues. Facebook users tend to
disclose the variable amount of private information (Agosto & Abbas, 2013). This research
targets online users in Australia who are addicted to the using of Facebook and other online
platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and Snapchat. The hypothesis of the research is that most
Facebook users in Australia disclose their private information. The research assumes that
Facebook privacy policy and terms of use are not known by the participants. Therefore, the
research will be based on a closer investigation of the awareness on the aspect of privacy when
using Facebook –a social platform that will be used as the research subject in the entire study.
Introduction
Basically, the social network is a platform which includes a set of people or other related social
entities including organizations who are linked or connected together to share meaningful social
information (Ahmed et al.,2013). In the modern world, the concept of social network sites has
experienced tremendous changes due to increased innovation in the world. For example, we
social networks such as the Myspace which is ranked the 10th site with more than 60 million
users both in the USA and from other parts of the world. The later reports show that Facebook
(www.facebook.com) has received billions of people over the world. The issue is that despite

Sociology
having all this big number of users there are not stipulated policies for privacy thus raising
attention in the world (Aldhafferi,Watson & Sajeev, 2013).
Therefore, reports from different research bodies and communities indicate that Facebook is the
biggest networking site which was founded in 2004 in the United States of America. It was
founded by a former student of Harvard University the Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook, in the
beginning, was created to for students but nowadays it is accessed by everyone in the world
regardless of age and status quo. Everyone who has a credible phone number and active email is
able to access services found in Facebook. In the same year the site was created it had more than
15 million users. This means that the site attracted a big number of users in the USA. By the year
2009, Facebook had more than 200 million users (AlSagri & AlAboodi, 2015).
Therefore, members in this social media platform usually connect through sending a friend
request to other members who are in the same line of connection. Sending a friend request on
Facebook means one has liked another user who is supposed to accept the request so that they
can communicate. In addition, by becoming friends through Facebook it means members allows
each other to view or access the profile bio information that contains personal credentials
describing the user. However, in Facebook users can always determine who to view the profile
information and who is not supposed to view the profile images and other related information
(Black, Stone & Johnson, 2015).
In the study, the aim will be based on the information disclosure in terms of the user profile. This
means how users in the social network site display their profiles and how users ensure their basic
information is not revealed when writing messages and using users walls and users pages on
Facebook.

Sociology
The earlier research shows that the main motivation of the use of social networking sites is
through communication and maintaining a cordial relationship with the other users. There are
popular activities which are carried out in social networking sites (Choi et al.,2015).Some of the
activities include sharing of personal information and also concerns on whereabouts such as
viewing other user's status. Also, there is sharing of photos, images, and videos and getting
updates on various issues from the friends who display in either group or in their pages.
Facebook allows all these activities with the help of privacy links whereby one cannot view other
people's activities if he or she is not a member of the group or he or she is not a friend to the user
who is posting.
Different studies have attempted to investigate the implications related to the privacy on the use
of Facebook and other online platforms such as Twitter, WhatsApp, and Snapchat which have
transformed the entire world (Chu & Du, 2013). The studies determine the users' privacy and
behavior which tends to examine the privacy associated with the use of online sites. There are
risks which are believed to arise when users disclose the identifiable information about himself
through the online to other people who will access it when he will be online or offline since no
security measures used for protection.
Some researchers indicated that most of the people in Australia are indeed aware of the possible
results of providing information to online strangers. Online users in Australia knows the risk of
identity and theft cases associated with disclosing personal information via online. Most of the
online users in Australia feel comfortable revealing their information even though they are aware
of how to limit the visibility of their data. Reports show that online users also most of the times
do not take the initiatives of protecting their information on online platforms. In another study
carried out in Australia, the results concluded that online users think that the issues of privacy