Cybersecurity Challenges in Social Media Erdal Ozkaya

6.2
 
Primary data results 
To complement the available data from secondary sources, this research saw it fit to 
conduct a short survey and obtain more updated information from users. Therefore, an online 
questionnaire was coded and sent to a number of respondents. The online questionnaire that 
was given to users in the form of a survey got back 100 valid responses within a short time 
and those were considered sufficient for the study. The recorded responses were converted 
into percentages for easier analysis. The end results as extracted from the database are in 
Appendix A. 
6.3
 
Discussion of the results 
The following section discusses the results obtained from both the primary and 
secondary data collection. Logically, the discussion of secondary data has been placed to 
precede primary data. This is to help form a base of understanding and also to give 
perspective to the discussion of primary data.
6.3.1
 
Discussion of results from secondary data 
6.3.1.1
 
From Pew Research Center 
The data collected fell within all the privacy concerns that users had with both social 
media platforms and the government. When the 607 respondents were asked whether they 
were aware of the US government monitoring their communications, 87% said that they had 

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heard of that grim reality. This means that most users are aware that their privacy is already 
being violated. It is rather unfortunate that the entities that people trust to protect their rights 
are the same that are actively spying on them and breaching their privacy rights. When asked 
about their level of control over their information that was being collected by various 
platforms, 91% regretfully confirmed that they believed they had minimal control. This 
showed that users were becoming aware of the fact that they were not the ones in control of 
their information online but rather the different social media companies. Users regret this fact 
that they cannot safeguard their own information and that social media companies are busy 
brokering deals to sell off their data. When asked about the ability to delete their online data, 
88% believed that it was impossible for one to fully delete his/her data. Some social media 
platforms do not even allow users to delete their accounts; they can only deactivate them. 
Social media companies support a one-way flow of data and that is to them. Data is hardly 
withdrawn from them and it is all because of their greedy nature. This is the reality that users 
have to live with. 80% of the respondents shared their concerns about third parties being able 
to access the data that they shared. Some platforms, such as Facebook have already been 
found to be giving out too much data for simple third-party apps on Facebook. Facebook is 
not the only culprit; it seems that most of them are in this guilt list. They parade user 
information before advertisers in order to attract fat contracts. Their only concern nowadays, 
seems to be making money out of personal user information and users are increasingly 
becoming aware of this. Facebook is in the spotlight because it is doing that to its user base of 
close to 2 billion users. 
The researchers also put the government into the spotlight when they asked the 
respondents whether they felt concerned about the government collecting social media data. 
70% of the respondents felt that they were highly concerned about the government doing this 
behind their backs. Users are aware that there have been rumors of some governments 

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forcefully withdrawing user information from their personal account. Some governments 
have been accused of forcefully requiring some social media platforms to give up accounts of 
some users without their consent. Governments have already painted bad images about 
themselves, and it is such a shame that at one point, they turned to snooping around user’s 
private chats. This is why users feel highly concerned about their shameless interference with 
their personal lives despite not doing anything wrong. The reality is that in this battle of 
privacy, users have lost confidence in their governments to safeguard their privacy. This is 
because their previously exposed intrusions of user social media accounts make them and the 
social media platforms equally crooked. This is why 64% of the respondents felt that their 
government needed to pull up their socks when it came to regulating online adverts. Social 
media adverts fall into this category, and a lot of the filth around the lack of privacy has been 
brought about by unregulated advertising. Advertisers are being sold private data by social 
media companies and most governments have taken this lying down. 34% of the respondents 
said that they did not want governments to get involved with the regulation of adverts. This is 
most likely because governments have betrayed their trust in the past, and they are worried 
that this regulation may be turned into something else. Governments may use this as an 
opportunity to pull out more private user information for their own gains or in the name of 
fighting terrorism. 
Social media platforms have pedaled the notion that access to users’ private 
information is used to better the services they access online. The researchers asked the 
respondents whether they agreed with this, and it turned out that over 90% of them disagreed 
with it. The respondents were aware of what these platforms actually use their personal data 
predominantly for. A platform such as Facebook cannot be said to be using personal data to 
better its services while it is dragging court cases behind it over giving this data to third 
parties without consent. The respondents seemed to be well aware of the facts about the 

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cheap lies sold by social media platforms. When asked whether they were willing to share 
their personal information in order to continue to access the free services, 334 affirmed. 
While it may seem a bit awkward, it was actually because deep within these platforms were 
excellent services that users had made to be a part of their lives. Take Facebook, for example; 
it had been an excellent social media platform for a long period until it started advertising 
aggressively and giving out private user information without consent. 334 respondents would 
rather have the little information that they would continue sharing given out to advertisers to 
continue accessing social media services. It did not, however, mean that they were 
comfortable or happy about the way social media platforms were using their data. 
When asked about their confidence levels with the different communication media, it 
did not come as a surprise that social media had the poorest confidence level. 80% of the 
respondents said that it was either totally insecure or not very secure. Social media is more 
insecure than the outdated text messages they replaced. Social media platforms are ridden 
with identity thieves, social engineers, stalkers, and most of all, users are not 100% sure that 
even their private chats are private. The mishandling of the user’s private data has also 
contributed to this low confidence level. People no longer have trust in the confidentiality of 
whatever they post or even chat on social media.

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