Privacy concerns and identity in online social networks

Driven by privacy-related fears, users of Online Social Networks maystart to reduce their network activities. This trend can have a negative impact onnetwork sustainability and its business value. Nevertheless, very little is understoodabout the privacy-related concerns of users and the impact of those concerns onidentity performance. To close this gap, we take a systematic view of user privacyconcerns on such platforms. Based on insights from focus groups and an empiricalstudy with 210 subjects, we find that (i) Organizational Threats and (ii) SocialThreats stemming from the user environment constitute two underlying dimensionsof the construct “Privacy Concerns in Online Social Networks”. Using a StructuralEquation Model, we examine the impact of the identified dimensions of concern onthe Amount, Honesty, and Conscious Control of individual self-disclosure on thesesites. We find that users tend to reduce the Amount of information disclosed as aresponse to their concerns regarding Organizational Threats. Additionally, usersbecome more conscious about the information they reveal as a result of SocialThreats. Network providers may want to develop specific mechanisms to alleviateidentified user concerns and thereby ensure network sustainability