Data protection laws and privacy on Facebook

Abstract

Background: Social networks have changed the way people communicate. Business processes and social interactions revolve more in the cyber space. However, as these cyber technologies advance, users become more exposed to privacy threats. Regulatory frameworks and legal instruments currently lacking a strong cyber presence are required, for the protection of users. Objectives: There is need to explore and evaluate the extent to which users are exposed to vulnerabilities and threats in the context of the existing protection laws and policies. Furthermore, to investigate how the existing legal instruments can be enhanced to better protect users. Method: This article evaluates and analyses these privacy challenges from a legalistic point of view. The study is focused on the South African Facebook users. Poll information gathered from the profile pages of users at North-West University was analysed. A short survey was also conducted to validate the poll results. Descriptive statistics, including measures of central tendency and measures of spread, have been used to present the data. In addition, a combination of tabulated and graphical description data was also summarised in a meaningful way. Results: The results clearly show that the legal frameworks and laws are still evolving and that they are not adequately drafted to deal with specific cyber violation of privacy. Conclusion: This highlights the need to review legal instruments on a regular basis with wider consultation with users in an endeavour to develop a robust and an enforceable legal framework. A proactive legal framework would be the ideal approach unfortunately; law is reactive to cyber-crimes.

Factors explaining user loyalty in a social media-based brand community

“…Interacting with unknown individuals in an online environment can be unpredictable and present users with overwhelming complexity. Studies have shown that the lack of trust and the absence of social norms in complex online social environments can inhibit a person's intentions to perform many behaviours (Gefen 2000;Laroche et al 2012;Nyoni & Velempini 2015). Therefore, trust and social norms can also play an important role in risk and complexity reduction in the social media-based OBC context.…”

“…Trust plays an important role in all forms of commercial exchanges and is more important in exchanges where one party must exhibit complete faith in another or expose themselves to uncertainty or risk (Gefen, Karahanna & Straub 2003;Gefen 2000). In the social networking environment, users are often concerned about security, privacy and fraud issues (Dwyer, Hiltz & Passerini 2007;Laroche et al 2013;Nyoni & Velempini 2015). This is further exacerbated by the uncertainty of using the somewhat open Internet infrastructure to interact (Gefen 2000).…”

Platform Dependency in the Big Tech Era: Lessons from Australian Facebook Blackout and Botswana Implications

“…They maintain that these algorithms, while aiding users in decision-making based on big data, are influenced by broader social trends and the values of the organizations that develop them. This sophistication poses a challenge as various individuals, groups, and media companies rely on the same algorithms for decision-making, highlighting the multidimensional nature of privacy and data protection provided by social media account owners (Nyoni & Velempini, 2015). Similarly, other scholars explore the intersection of ethics and privacy (Hargittai & Marwick, 2016;Sarikakis & Winter, 2017;Becker, 2019;Meese et al, 2019).…”