Cybersecurity Challenges in Social Media Erdal Ozkaya

2.2.4
 
The mechanics of interpersonal privacy on social media platforms 
The proliferation of social media platforms, such as Facebook, which has over two 
billion users, has welcomed researchers to do more studies on privacy. As Bryan Hammer 
(2013) explains, most people are used to architectural privacy, which is given by means of 
privacy policies on websites. This architecture, which has been made mandatory by most 
countries, establishes the privacy between a user and an organization or the individual owner 
of the website. On social media, however, users largely interact with other users and the 
privacy definition between them is lacking. Users are tasked with managing their own 

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privacy by the social media platforms. The platforms give a number of ways to secure their 
privacy but it is ultimately upon the users to use the techniques and controls given. Hammer, 
therefore, questions how privacy influences the way users share their personal information on 
social media sites. He comes to three answers to this question, answers that shall be 
expounded on. The first one is that users are driven to share a lot of personal information by 
the fear of social exclusion. The second one is that it depends on the multiplexity of 
relationships on a user’s accounts; that is, it depends on the people the user is friends with or 
is followed by, who will see the posted information. The third answer that Hammer arrives at 
is that it depends on a user’s subconscious approach of whether or not to share his/her 
personal information on social media platforms. Combining the three, Hammer says that 
users share personal information on social media platform due to their attitudes and perceived 
beliefs towards interpersonal relationships. 
In his research, Hammer (2013) starts off by explaining that there seems to be an 
ever-changing balance between privacy and personalization on social networking sites. 
Supported by other researchers, Hammer argues that social media users want to have the 
freedom to socialize but at the same time require to be afforded some privacy protection. It is 
apparent that privacy is, then, hard to define as users want to participate in a global society 
brought to them by the social media sites. Hammer (2013) explains the sharp difference 
between social media sites and other types of sites. The real motivation to use social media 
sites is intrinsic while most other sites offer extrinsic fulfillment. An example he gives is an 
e-commerce website where the motivation to use it is extrinsic and outcome-oriented. He 
contrasts this with social media sites saying that these are process-oriented in that users are 
mostly looking forward to social exchanges with others. This is what gives them joy and 
fulfillment. With this explanation, Hammer expounds his research question of the influence 

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of privacy on the sharing of personal information on social media into smaller questions. He 
poses the following questions to help guide his research: 
1.
What theories can enhance our understanding of privacy in social media sites? 
2.
In addition to the theories, what constructs can enhance our understanding of privacy? 
3.
How will the conceptualization of privacy differ between a process-oriented system 
and an outcome-oriented system? 
4.
What individual differences exist related to how individuals perceive privacy? 
5.
How can researchers resolve the debate as to what privacy is as a concept? (Hammer, 
2013) 
To answer these questions, Hammer decides to give three viewpoints. These were as 
outlined earlier in this chapter and will be discussed in-depth. In his first viewpoint, he 
answers the first three questions listed above. In the second viewpoint, he answers the fifth 
question. In the third viewpoint, he gives an answer to the fourth question, as we are going to 
see below.