Cybersecurity Challenges in Social Media Erdal Ozkaya

5.4.2
 
Secondary data collection 
Some secondary data was borrowed from earlier researches conducted by others. First 
of all, the paper borrowed data from a research done in 2015 about social media and privacy 
by Alawawi (Alalawi, 2015). The researcher collected responses from 50 respondents 
concerning the issues of privacy and security in social media platforms (Alalawi, 2015). The 
researcher looked into five groups of questions in general. The first group of questions were 
aimed at gathering data about the attitudes of people towards different social media 
platforms. The second group of questions looked into the attitudes of users towards the then 
available privacy policies. The third group of gathered data about the concerns of the users 
when it came to their privacy on different social media. The fourth group of questions looked 
at the importance of social media and whether it was viable to scrap it off. The last group 
gathered information about the user perception of who was responsible for ensuring the 
privacy of users. 
This study also borrowed data from a leading research institute globally, Pew 
Research Center. Pew Research Center had just done a survey of 607 adults living in the US 
about their perceptions of privacy and security on social media platforms. Sample of 1537 
respondents had been selected, of which 935 accepted the invitation and finally only 607 
completed the survey. The survey engaged the respondents for a prolonged period of time 
and at times held online group chats with them. The organization ran the survey online for 

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some time and got a huge number of responses which they disclosed. Their survey sought to 
discover the information users had concerning the government monitoring their private 
conversations. The survey also looked at the concerns of the US citizens towards 
surveillance. It also looked at the confidence levels that users had on different platforms. The 
users were also asked if they believed if it was possible to protect their privacy online. The 
survey also asked respondents to disclose the personal information that they were most 
sensitive about being disclosed. 

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