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Research introduction Assignment

Luis Perez

Liberty University

Course Number and Name

Instructor’s Name and Title

November 28, 2021

Issues of communication security and privacy started even before the advent of the

internet. The most rudimentary form of information technology was the telegraph, the first

commercially viable form of communication over long distances (Rao & Nayak, 2014). The

advent of technology was essential in supporting commerce. However, the new form of

communication was affected by issues of unauthorized access. The progress of telephony and

telegraph used in the world highlighted the inherent risks of unauthorized access to privileged

information by third parties culminating in the development of strategies both technical and legal

to address the issue (Rao & Nayak, 2014). However, the onset of computing indicated that the

laws intended to control unauthorized access to information were insufficient. Enactment of laws

such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and subsequent amendments promised a

legal framework to address unauthorized access to information shared electronically (Gottlieb,

2017). However, this law is ineffective in addressing all forms of private information shared on

internet-enabled devices. The advent of social media, smartphone technology, and cloud

computing has led to newer threats to personal privacy (Gottlieb, 2017). The same conundrum of

security and information sharing faced early telegraph pioneers today, with the risks of access

posed mainly by social media companies. However, privacy, especially for social media users, is

not a binary solution due to its complex nature. Complexity in guaranteeing privacy on social

media can be linked to the privacy paradox, which refers to the voluntary sharing of information

by social media users while expecting optimal privacy (Wu, 2019). The second issue with

privacy for social media is that the personal data collected by social media companies are later

used for online marketing by third parties who purchase this data from social media companies

(Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018). Therefore, there is a question of enterprise and whether

overregulation of the data usage and trading between online marketers will affect the willingness
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of the companies to continue providing the platforms for social networking, social commerce,

and social blogging. Traditionally, the government has allowed the companies operating in the

social media sphere to self-regulate. However, this has largely failed, as evidenced in the recent

leaks on the internal operations of large technology companies (Cusumano, Gawer & Yoffie,

2021). Understanding the issue of privacy paradox among digital natives or netizens will provide

better insights on the management of social media companies and the self-regulation from the

users’ perspectives.

The issue of social media and privacy is integral for the future growth of the new

industry. Some of the companies in the social media sphere are relatively new, with the oldest

being just over twenty years and Facebook the largest, being slightly below twenty years

(Deibert, 2019). Newer forms of social media companies are being developed, with the most

recent example being Tik Tok, a short video-sharing company. The companies are also founded

and domiciled in different parts of the world, meaning privacy laws may differ. For instance, Tik

Tok and Zoom are Chinese companies, while other prominent social media companies are

domiciled in the United States. The differences in regulatory frameworks may hinder global

government-driven interventions from increasing privacy. The governments are also culpable for

breaching privacy, as is the case in the United States, whereby state-sanctioned surveillance

relies on telephone companies and social media giants (Feldstein, 2019 & Lewis, 2021). Previous

works on social media and privacy have focused heavily on the role of the government in

breaching privacy rights (Wang). Studies focused on the privacy paradox are still at their

infancy, emphasizing the definition of the problem. This study will focus on the issue of privacy

paradox as it manifests among the netizens or digital natives. These are social media users or

internet users who must log in daily. They are also young and have grown up with information
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technology. Solutions such as abstaining from social media may not work for this generation.

However, they are going to make up the most significant part of social media users alongside

millennials.

This exploratory study will attempt to fill the knowledge gap on the perceptions of the

digital natives on privacy paradox, and some of the solutions that they think can work to promote

social media privacy while retaining the overall value derived from usage. The study will explore

the feelings of the most likely social media users and the first adopters of any new social media

technology created to provide a complete picture for social media companies’ regulation.

The study is critical because it will increase knowledge on social media use and the need

for regulation. The study will also explore the psychology of social media users and why the

issue of privacy still manifests when most users share their personal or private information

voluntarily. The study will also examine the role of the social media companies in the

degeneration of privacy and further discuss how the proposed interventions such as the new and

nationwide antitrust suits affect the most frequent users. Social media companies can use insights

from the study to increase the overall efficacy of self-regulation among social media companies.

The government can also use the findings from the study to formulate better policies for

regulating social media, given that the new policy will factor in the end users’ views.

The study aims to explore state of knowledge on social media and the privacy paradox

among digital natives. The study will use an exploratory mixed-method approach. The study will

focus on the college-going demographic aged 18-22. The research design was selected due to the

complexity of the subject. Adoption of both approaches will increase the completeness of the

data collected. For the quantitative part of the study, the independent variable will be social

media use, both present, and intended use. The dependent variables will be privacy concerns, the
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need for connection and the normalization of social media use among the digital natives. The

qualitative part of the study will examine the level of knowledge that the digital natives have of

social media-linked privacy violations. The section will also explore the views of the netizens

about the privacy paradox and the agency they have on promoting their privacy.
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References

Cadwalladr, C., & Graham-Harrison, E. (2018). Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles

harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach. The guardian, 17, 22.

Cusumano, M., Gawer, A., & Yoffie, D. (2021). Can self-regulation save digital

platforms?. Industrial and Corporate Change.

Deibert, R. J. (2019). The road to digital unfreedom: Three painful truths about social

media. Journal of Democracy, 30(1), 25-39.

Feldstein, S. (2019). The global expansion of AI surveillance (Vol. 17). Washington, DC:

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Gottlieb, A. B. (2017). Reevaluating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: Amending the Statute

to Explicitly Address the Cloud. FoRDHAM L. REv., 86, 767.

Lewis, R. (2021). Under Surveillance. In Under Surveillance. University of Texas Press.

Rao, U. H., & Nayak, U. (2014). History of Computer Security. In The InfoSec Handbook (pp.

13-25). Apress, Berkeley, CA.

Wang, Y. A comparative study of Chinese and European Internet companies’ privacy

policy. Linguistics, 27(1), 123-131.

Wu, P. F. (2019). The privacy paradox in the context of online social networking.