Privacy Settings in Online Social Networks -- Preferences, Perception, and Reality

To approach privacy threats stemming from interacting with other users on Online Social Networks (OSN), effective Social Identity Management (SIdM) is a key requirement. SIdM refers to the deliberate and targeted disclosure of personal information to a subset of one´s contacts on OSN. Yet, unlike the physical world, SIdM on OSN is compromised by unavailable or insufficient settings as well as by properties of mediated communication (e.g. persistence). In this paper, we employ a novel approach based on the participants´ Facebook profiles content to study privacy settings in OSN. Our results indicate a mismatch between perceived, preferred, and actual settings that can be reduced to lack of awareness and control by the user.