A COMPREHENSIVE RESEARCH ON THE SAFETY OF SOCIAL

NETWORKING WEBSITES IN TERMS OF PRIVACY

A Research Paper Presented to the Humanities,

Social Sciences and Communication Department

In partial fulfillment for the course ENGL303

Modern Communication 1

ALVAREZ, Andrea B.

NARVAEZ, Ann Margarette D.

April 5, 2010
 Table of Contents

I. Introduction Pages 1 - 4

II. Review of Related Studies Pages 5 - 21

III. Research Methodology Pages 22- 24

IV. Interpretation and Analysis of Data Pages 25 - 35

V. Summary, Conclusion and Pages 36 - 39

Recommendation

Bibliography

Appendices
 Chapter 1

Background of the Study

A. Introduction

In the past years, the World Wide Web has provided the internet users

various applications or programs that serve as a source of entertainment and

assistance.

One of these websites is the Social Networking Websites which has

become increasingly popular among the internet users whether they are aged

or juvenile. Social Networking websites are internet websites that provides a

virtual community for people which allows them to create their profile and

share information with other members of the community, examples of this are

Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc.

Many studies are coming out about the importance of social networking

websites. These studies shows that people with a strong social networking

activity have a great chance of being successful it is because they have more

capacity to contact with influential people compared to people with less or no

social networking. And if we think we have good contacts through other

people attached to them then maybe we can ask to get some favor from

them.As we can see, all of us are connected in various ways.

Some people enjoy having a large social network while others prefer to

just have a small group in social network.

 In using social networking websites, it can have advantages and even

disadvantages. There are large numbers of advantages that we can get from

using social networking websites like getting good referrals, getting good

feedbacks, getting new opportunities, winning trust of other people easily,

getting good timely help and etc. on the other hand , we can also have

disadvantages in using social networking sites. It now plays a huge part in

modern life, but its benefits are accompanied by a darker side. Researchers

said that many of us replace real-life social interaction with online chat rooms

and social networking sites which causes addiction that leads to depression.

Because there are thousands of people joining social networking websites,

managers of these sites are quite unable to keep track of all of their members.

This means that though there might be rules governing these sites; members

are not always keen in complying with it. Some members of these websites

are victims of profile hacking where the hacker takes personal information and

post it as their own or worse, ruin the person’s reputation. There are ways to

avoid being quarry to these things, for example, one should not share

personal information inadvertently.

Beware of sites that offer some sort of reward or prize in exchange for

your contact information or other personal details and do not reply to

spammers. These are just some of the ways to protect our privacy in Social

Networking Websites.

B. Statement of the Problem

The researchers will conduct this study so that by the end of this research

they will be able to answer the following questions:

• What are the problems that an individual might encounter upon

using Social Networking Sites?

• How can privacy be protected in Social Networking sites?

• What are the terms and conditions implemented by social

networking websites?

• Why do people use social networking websites?

• What are the common social networking sites used by individuals?

A. Hypothesis

Null Hypothesis

Although Social Networking Sites (SNS) provides many advantages to

its user, its ability to protect users is questionable because of the possibility

that members may encounter hackers, stalkers and identity thefts.

Operational Hypothesis

Social Networking Sites is a way of developing one’s social skills by

means of communicating with others, sharing ideas, and expressing one’s

opinions. And people with higher social skills have the greater chance for a

successful life.

B. Significance of the Study

This research is conducted to impart knowledge to the users of Social

Networking Sites about the safety of their privacy; especially to all the minors

of both genders with ages ranging from 10 years old and above or even

younger who are more in danger of being a victim to online crimes. This

research also benefits future researchers by providing some additional

information about social networking websites and its privacy policies.

C. Scope and Limitations

The researchers conducted their survey at FEU-East Asia College

where they handed-out questionnaires to 10 students taking up B.S.

Electronics and Communication, 10 students from B.S. Information

Technology and 10 students taking up B.S. Computer Science. They also

distributed 20 survey questionnaires outside FEU-East Asia College

campus. These questionnaires are given to students and employees using

an SNS in computer shops. The researchers conducted the survey staring

from March 15, 2010 (Monday) to March 19, 2010 (Friday).

Chapter 2

Foreign Literature and Related Studies

 This chapter provides articles and thesis in regard to the

researchers' study both from foreign and local sources. These articles are

also used as reference material for this research paper. This chapter also

includes the researchers' formed theoretical framework about their topic

A. Foreign studies

Networking sites had increase in recent years. Friendster, Tribe and

Facebook creates million of individuals online profiles and impart personal

information with friends in the network in this paper we studied information,

revelations on online social networks and their privacy implications. Ralph

Gross analyzed the behavior of the Carnegie Mellon university students

who have their profile on a social networking sites catered on their college.

He then evaluated the amount of information that they had entered to the

sites privacy settings and show the potential aspects which may occur on

their privacy and it shows that only little percentage of users permeable

privacy settings.

1. Evolution of online networking

 Making digital or hard copies of all part of personal work or

classroom are allowed for free. Copies are not given for the sense of

making business or marketing and that copies bear this notice and the

whole citation on the first page. To make a duplicate or otherwise to

republish, to put on servers or gine it again gives specific conditions or

payment.

In the past years social networking sites has been phenomenally

known and have been adopt by tons of people. After the advent of the

internet on 1960's the interest of computer based education had rose well.

The fast increase of in participation on multi sophisticated of purpose

usage of multi different sites. The soft ware web blog2 now impart with the

many social networking sites in nine options including business, mutual

interest, dating, personal facilitation, peers, pets and pictures.

While boundaries are in struggle, online networking sites share

ideas through the sites imparted individual profiles for introducing their

selves, to others to use for communication to meet new friends or dates

find job opportunities, give or be recommended and so forth and so on.

Viral growth of expanding at rates topping 20% a month is not usual for

social networking sites.

Liu and Maes studied that millions of self descriptive profiles are web-

based social networks. In 2004 Leonard reported that worldwide, millions

of people have their friendster, and two million were suppose to have their

MySpace, 16 million are going to have their tickle profile.

2.1 social network theory and privacy

The person's social network is multi faceted in the relation between

privacy. In certain affairs the user only wants to be known by only small

amount of peers and groups and not by someone else. The user is willing

to show personal information to some strangers, but not to those who

knows us well.

Social network theorists have given a hypothesis to the simile of

relations of different depth of a person’s strength on social network and the

so called importance of weak ties in the flow of information across different

nodes in a network. Networking theory has been used to find how distant

nodes can get connected through random ties. Strahilevitz highlighted the

privacy relevance of these arguments.

As a tool for curing interpretation of privacy in legal cases,

Strahilelivs has proposed applying formal social network theory regarding

privacy he suggest that the parties should expect to follow initial disclosure

of information by someone than the defendant, in other words the

consideration of how the files will flow from node to node in others social

network should also inform that person's expectation for privacy of files

revealed in the network. However the applications of social network theory

to the study of information revelations in online social networks highlight

significant differences between the offline and the online scenarios.

First, offline social networks are made of ties that can only be

loosely categorized as extremely diverse in terms of how close and reduce

these nuanced connections to simplistic binary relations :”friends or not”

People are indicated as friends even though the users are not

particular know or trust the person. Second, while the number of strong

ties that a person may maintain on a social networking sites may not be

significantly increase by online networking technology.

Third, while an offline social network may include up to a dozen of

intimate or significance ties and 1000 to 1700”acquaintances”or

“interactions”.

This implies online social networks .in other words, thousands of

users may be classified. As friends of friends of an individual and become

able to access her personal information, while at the same time, the

threshold to qualify as friend on somebody’s network is low.

Social networks may be assigned differently and have a different

meaning than in their offline counterparts.

At the same time, a new form of intimacy becomes widespread of

the personal information with large and potential unknown number of

friends and strangers altogether. It remains to be investigated how similar

or different are mental models people apply to personal information

revelations within traditional network of friends compared to those that are

applied in an online network.

2.2 privacy implications

Privacy implication associated with online social networking

websites that do not openly expose their users’ identities may provide

enough information to identify the profile’s owner. Since users often re-use

the same or similar photos across different sites on another sites.

The researchers note that information revelation can work in two

ways by allowing another party to identify a pseudonymous profile through

previous knowledge of a subject characteristics or traits about subject

identified on a certain site.

Obviously, the information is available within the network itself,

whose extension in time and space may not be fully known or knowable by

participant .finally the easiness of joining and extending one’s network and

the lack of basic security measures at most networking sites make it easy

for third parties to access participant’s data without the site’s direct

collaboration.

Risk range from identity theft to online the physical stalking from

embarrassment to price discrimination and black mailing. Yet there are

some who believe that social networking sites can also offer the solution to
online privacy problems. While privacy may be at risk in social networking

sites, information is willingly provided. Different factors are likely drive

information revelation in online social networks.

List includes signaling because the perceive benefit of selectively

revealing data to strangers may appear larger than the perceive costs of

possible privacy invasions peer pressure and herding behavior; relaxed

attitudes towards personal privacy; incomplete information, faith in the

networking service or trust in its member; myopic evaluation of privacy risk

or also the services own users interface that may drive the unchallenged

acceptance of permeable default privacy settings.

Social network sites (SNS’s) are increasingly attracting the attention

of academic and industry researches intrigues by their affordance and

research. In this introductory article, the researchers describe features of

SNS’s and propose a comprehensive definition they then present one

perspective on the history of such sites, discussing key changes and

developments. After briefly summarizing existing scholarship concerning

SNS’s they discussed the articles in this special section and conclude with

considerations for future research.

10

Since their production, social network sites (SNS’s) such as my

space, facebook, cyworld, and bebo have attracted millions of users, many

of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. As of this
writing these are hundreds of SNS’s with various technological

affordances, supporting a wide range of interest and practices. Some sites

cater to diverse and audiences, while others attract people based on

common language or shared racial ,sexual, religious, or nationality-based

identities sites also vary in the extent to which they incorporate new

information and communication tools such as mobile connectivity, logging,

and photo/video-sharing.

The purpose of this introduction is to provide conceptual, historical,

and scholarly contexts for articles in this collection. The writer of this article

began by defining what constitutes a social network sites and then present

one perspective on the historical development of SNS’s drawing from

personal interviews and public accounts of sites and their changes over

time. Following this they reviewed recent scholarship on SNS’s and

attempt to contextualize and highlight key works concluded with a

description of the articles included in this special section and suggestions

for future research.

The researchers define social network sites as web-based services

that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a

bounded system

11

,articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection and

view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within
the system the nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary

from site.

While the researchers use the term “social network” to describe this

phenomenon , the term social networking sites also appears in the public

discourse, and two terms are often chose not to employ the term

networking for two reasons emphasis and scope. Networking emphasizes

relationship instillation, often between strangers. While networking is

possible on these sites it is not the primary practice on many of them, nor

is it what differentiates when form of computer-mediated

communications (CMC).

What makes social network sites unique that they enable users to

articulate and make visible their social networks? This can result in

connections between individuals that would not otherwise be made, but

that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between

“entities” who share some offline connection. To emphasize these

articulated social networks as critical organizing features of these sites we

label them “social sites”.

While SNS’s have implemented a wide variety of technical features

their backbone consist of visible profiles that display an articulated list of

friends who are also users of the system.

12
 The profile generated using the answers to these questions, which

typically include descriptions such as age locations, interest, and an “about

me” section.

Most sites also encourage users to upload a profile photo. Some

sites allow users to most sites also encourage users to upload a profile

picture. Some sites allow users to enhance their profiles by adding

multimedia content or modifying their profile’s look and feel others, such as

Facebook, allow users to add modules (“applications”) that enhance their

profile. The visibility of a profile varies by sites and according to user

discretion.

Sites like MySpace allow users to choose whether they want their

profile to be public or “friends only”. Facebook takes a different approach

by default , users who are part of the same network can view each other’s

profiles , unless a profile owner has decide to deny permission to those in

their network.

After joining a social network site, users are prompted to identify

others in the system with which they have a reaction ship. The public

display of connections is crucially component of SNS’s the friends list

contains link to each other’s friends’ profile, enabling viewers to traverse

the network graph by clicking through the friends list. For instances some

my space users have hacked their profiles to hide the friends display and

linked in allows users to out of displaying their network.

13
 Most SNS’s also provide a mechanism for users to leave message

on their Friendster profiles .this features typically involves leaving

“comments” although sites employ various labels for this features in

addition, SNS’s often have a private messaging feature similar to web

mail, while both private messages and comments are popular on most of

the major SNS’s they are not universally available.

Beyond profiles, friends, comments, and private messaging, SNS’s

vary greatly in their features and user base. Some photo sharing or video-

sharing capabilities; others have built-in blogging and instant messaging

technology.

Many SNS’s target people from specific geographical regions or

linguistics groups although this does not always determine the site’s

constituency. While SNS’s are often designed to be widely accessible

many attract homogenous populations initially so it is not un common to

find groups using sites to segregate themselves by nationality ,age

,education level or other factors that typically segment society even if that

was not the intention of the designers.

According to the definition above the first recognizable social

network site launched in 1997. profiles existed on the most major dating

sites and many community sites AIM and ICQ buddy lists supported lists

of friends, although with their high school or college and surf the network

14
for others who were also affiliated but users could not create profiles or list

of friends until years later six degrees was the first to combine these

features.

Six degrees promoted itself as a tool to help people connect with

and send messages to others while six degrees attracted millions of users

it failed to become a sustainable business and in 2000 the service closed.

From 1997 to 2001 a number of community tools began supporting

various combinations of profiles and publicly articulated friends Asian

avenue, blackplanet, and migente allowed users to create personal,

professional, and dating profiles – users could identify friends on their

personal profiles without seeking approval for those connections.

The next wave of SNS’s began when Ryze.com was launched in

2001 to help people leverage their business networks. Ryze’s founder

reports that he first introduce the site to his friends –primarily members of

the san Francisco business and technology community , including the

entrepreneurs and investors behind many future SNS’s.

In particular, the people behind Ryze were tightly entwined

personally and professionally they believe that they could support each

other without competing in the

To capture the attention of massive media, News Corporation had

MySpace for S580 million (BBC, 2005) in July 2005. Then, different issues

15
 came in MySpace. There were series of sexual interactions

prompting legal action (Consumer Affairs, 2006) between adults and

minors. A moral panic for sexual consumers spread so fast even though

the study states that the concerns were exaggerated.

A global phenomenon

While MySpace was having the media’s attention in the U.S. and abroad,

SNSs were becoming popular in worldwide. Friendster had traction in the

Pacific Islands, Orkut in Brazil before in India (Madhavan, 2007), Mixi was

adopted by Japan, LunarStorm grew in Sweden, Hyves grew in Dutch

Poland embraced Grono, Hi5 captured Latin America, South America, and

Europe, and Bebe was adopted in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and

Australia. In additional, previously popular communication services was

implemented by having homepages and buddies (Ewers, 2006). Blogging

services also became popular with complete SNS features.

Expanding niche communities

Before expanding to a larger audience, other SNSs launched to

support niche demographics. Facebook was created to support some

college networks only unlike with previous SNS. Facebook began in early

2004 as a Harvard-only SNS (Cassidy, 2006). A user must have a

harvard.edu email address to join. But as the Facebook began engaging

with other schools, those users were required to have their university email

16
address with those institutions, a requirement to keep the site as an

intimate and private community.

September 2005, Facebook included high school students,

professionals and eventually, everyone. But these changes to open sign

up did not mean that the new users could easily access users in closed

networks, it still required the appropriate “.com” address. Unlike other

SNSs, Facebook users are unable to make their full profiles public, it also

has the ability for others to build “Applications”, which allow users to

personalize their profiles and do other tasks. Currently, although marketing

research states that SNS’s are becoming popular worldwide there are still

no reliable sources regarding the number of people who are using SNS.

Impression Management and Friendship Performance

SNS's constitute an important research context for scholars

investigating processes of impression management, self-presentation and

friendship performance. In one of the earliest academic articles on SNSs,

Boyd (2004) examined Friendster as a locus of publicly articulated social

networks that allowed users to negotiate presentations of self and connect

with others. Donath and Boyd (2004) extended this to suggest that "public

displays of connection" serve as important identity signals that help people

navigate the networked social world, in that an extended network may

serve to validate identity information presented in profiles

17
 While most sites encourage users to construct accurate

representations of them, participants do this to varying degrees. Another

aspect of self-presentation is the articulation of friendship links, which

serves as identity markers for the profile owner. Impression management

is one of the reasons given by Friendster users for choosing particular

friends.

In their examination of LiveJournal on "friendship", Fono and

Raynes-Goldie (2006) described users' understandings regarding public

displays of connections and how the Friending function can operate as a

catalyst for social drama. Friends provide context by offering users an

imagined audience to guide behavioral norms. Other work in this area has

examined the use of Friendster Testimonials as self-presentational

devices (boyd and Heer, 2006) and the extent to which the attractiveness

of one's Friends impacts formation.

Networks and Network Structure

Social network sites also provide rich sources of naturalistic

behavioral data. Profile and linkage data from SNSs can be gathered

either through the use of automated collection techniques or through

datasets provided directly from the company, enabling network patterns of

friending, usage, and other visible indicators, and continuing an analysis

trend that started with examinations of blogs and other websites.

18
 SNS researchers have also studied the network structure of

Friendship. Finally, Liu, Maes, and Avenport (2006) argued that Friend

connections are not the only network structure worth investigating. They

examined the ways in which the performance of tastes constitutes an

alternate network structure, which they call a "taste fabric".

Bridging Online and Offline Social Networks

Although exceptions exist, the available research suggests that

most SNSs primarily support pe-existing social relations. Ellison,

Steinfield, and Lampe (2007) suggest that Facebook is used to maintain

existing offline relationships or solidify offline connections, as opposed to

meeting new people. These relationships may be weak ties, but typically

there is some common offline element among individuals who friend one

another, such as a shared class at school.

Given that SNSs enable individuals to connect with one another, it is not

surprising that they have become deeply embedded in user's lives

Privacy

Popular press coverage SNSs has emphasized potential privacy

concerns, primarily concerning the safety of younger users. Researchers

have investigated the potential threats to privacy associated with SNSs.

In another study concerning security issues and SNSs, Jagatic,

Johnson, Jakobsson, and Menczer (2007) used freely accessible profile

19
 data from SNSs to craft a "phishing" scheme that appeared to

originate from a friend on the network; their targets were much more likely

to give away information to this "friend" than to a perceived stranger

Privacy is also implicated in users' ability to control impressions and

manage social contexts.

SNSs are also challenging legal conceptions of privacy. Hodge

(2006) argued that the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and

legal decisions concerning privacy are not equipped to address social

network sites. The legality of this hinges on users' expectation of privacy

and whether or not Facebook profiles are considered public or private.

A. Local Related Studies

According to ABS-CBN News report, Compete.com has crowned

Facebook the most popular social networking website in the Philippines

because of the amount of visits it received on the past few months which

totaled up to 3.1 billion visits.

The Internet-tracking firm released social networking website

rankings which revealed that MySpace declined to second place during

the course of the past year while Twitter catapulted to third place from

being 22nd.

The number of visitors to social networking websites and the

amount of time they dwell there are considered key indicators of how well

Internet services are doing.

20
 Facebook and Twitter have registered increases in both categories

while visits and time spent at MySpace have stagnated or slid during the

course of the past year, according to Compete.

Last February 17,2010, Facebook gave users control to the files

they upload on the site. The users can now choose selected users or

friends who can view the videos or pictures that they upload. These

content-sharing tools are also extended to the games and application

created by outside developers for the online community, says Facebook

engineer Ray He.

Now, Facebook’s 400 million members across the world are

required to set settings with a software tool that lets them specify who can

view each of the files that they have uploaded.

21
 Chapter 3

Research Methodology

A. Research Design

The researchers will use the descriptive type of researching in this

study because of the methods that they will use in gathering needed data

and information. They plan to gather facts through books and internet

websites, conduct surveys and interviews and after these steps, analyze

the data and opinions gathered.

B. Sampling Technique

The researchers conducted surveys with thirty (30) students of

FEU-East Asia College, both girls and boys, taking up B.S Electronics and

Communications Engineering, B.S. Computer Science, and B.S.

Information Technology. The researchers also performed surveys with ten

(10) students and ten (10) employees outside FEU-EAC which are regular

users of the internet or Social Networking Sites.

C. Local Population of the Study

The researchers conducted the survey with 50 people. 30 of these

respondents are students taking up different courses from FEU-East Asia

College, 10 students are from B.S. Electronic and Communication

22
 Engineering, another 10 students are from B.S. Information and

Technology, and 10 students are from B.S. Computer Science. The survey

is given to students both male and female with ages ranging from 16 years

old to 20 years old. The remaining 20 respondents are students and

employees outside FEU-EAC who are regular users of computer and the

internet. The 10 students that are surveyed have ages ranging from 12 to

19 years old and both male and female. As for the 10 employees, these

respondents’ ages range from 18 years old to 24 years old, with genders

both male and female.

D. Description of the Study

The over-all research approach is to compile data about Social

Networking Websites for data analysis. The major objective of this

research paper is to determine the major problems regarding privacy on

Social Networking Website and the ways to avoid being quarry to these

crimes.

E. Data Gathering Procedure

The researchers executed the surveys within one week starting

from March 15, 2010 (Monday) to March 19, 2010 (Friday). They gave

hand-outs containing questions to students from FEU-East Asia College

campus. They also gave questionnaires to 10 students and 10 employees

using the internet and not belonging to FEU-EAC campus. They also

23
 gathered information through the use of books and the internet.

F. Statistical Treatment

Through the use of the formula below, the researchers determined

the percent of surveyed persons with different ages, genders, and answers

to the questions in the survey form. The respondents are represented by N

and the over-all population is represented by R.

P=N ÷ R ×100

Wherein P stands for Percentage

24

Chapter 4
 Interpretation and Analysis of Data

This chapter will be discussing about the findings based on the survey

questionnaires parceled out to Social Networking Site users by the

researchers. The findings that are obtained are then related to the privacy

safety in their SNS profile. The researchers used Facebook as a reference in

this study.

The main objective of this chapter is to discern the percent of SNS

users who knows how to protect their privacy by the activities they do in their

profile. Furthermore, this also aims to determine the reason on why they use

Social Networking Sites, the problems that they have encountered in using

SNS and the other social networking sites they use aside from Facebook.

25
 In this graphical representation, the figure is divided into two divisions

showing the percentile rank of people who uses social networking sites out of

the 50 respondents that the researchers have surveyed.

According to the findings based on the survey, 3 out of 50 persons are

not using social networking sites. This shows that 94% out of the fifty

respondents are members of a social networking community while the

remaining 6% are not. These findings manifests that more people considers

SNS as a part of their daily lives.

26

The pie chart illustrates the total number of females and males who

cooperated in the survey. Out of the 50 respondents, 25 females are found

out to be using SNS which makes out about 50% of the over-all population of

the survey. This figure is greater to those of the males’ who only totaled to 22

people or about 44% of the respondents. According to the survey findings, 2

males and 1 female do not use SNS. This makes up the remaining 6% of the

over-all population of the respondents.

 27

The graph illustrates the ages of the respondents who uses social

networking sites. It is clear that SNS are more distinguished with teenagers

ranging from 16 to 18 years of age which tallied to 32 individuals out of the 50

respondents in the survey. Users with ages 19 to 21 years old, however, are

lesser in number with a total of 10 individuals compare to group age 16 to 18

years old. Social Networking Sites are not much-publicized with person aging

15 years old and below. This is based on the statistics from the survey which

showed that only 2 out of the 50 people have ages of 10 to 15 years old.

Furthermore, the group age 23 to 25 years old who are members of a social

networking site tallied to 3 persons.

28

The chart above shows the statistics about the reason an individual

uses a social networking site. The researchers subtracted the 3 individuals

who do not use SNS to the total number of the respondents so the total of all

the answer to this graph would be 47.

Based on the answers of the respondents in the survey, 24 people use

SNS mainly because of entertainment purposes. These are activities such as

games and applications, e.g. Personality quizzes and horoscope. The second

use an individual seeks in SNS is its’ communication feature like chatting and

communicating through wall posts or comments, 15 people say they use SNS

for this purpose. The use of SNS for gathering friends came up third with only

6 people saying they use SNS to widen their group of friends. Only 2 out of

the 47 people who use SNS in the survey say they use social networking sites

for promoting their business.

29

This graphical analysis illustrates the files that are most uploaded by

users of SNS. 40 of the 50 people the researchers have surveyed upload

pictures to their SNS profile. 15 of these individuals also upload videos in their

profile together with the pictures. The survey results also showed that 24

members of SNS share their opinions and activities through blogs,

testimonials or wall posts in their own profiles or their acquaintance’s profile.

Out of the 47 users, 14 people provides their personal information in their

SNS profile, these are information such as house address, cell phone

number, and e-mail address.

Uploading these personal files to the World Wide Web may very well

be a threat to the members of a virtual community in a Social Networking Site

because once these files have been submitted it becomes public property.

30
 The graph above shows the percentage of SNS users who have

encountered problems while using their SNS profiles. Based on their answers,

the researchers found out that 26% or 13 out of the 50 people interviewed

said that they have not yet experienced having problems in Social Networking

Sites like Facebook. Though this may be a large number of people who have

not become victim to problems on their SNS profile, it is a small amount

compared to the 37 individuals or 74% who have come upon problems

regarding the safety of their privacy.

31

According to the 37 respondents who said that they have encountered

problems regarding their SNS profile, humiliation and criticism is the most

common problem online. A total of 15 people said that they have experienced

humiliation and criticism from people who are both their acquaintances and

also from total strangers. These criticisms are either directed to the person’s

files or his opinion. The second most common problem of SNS users is

stalking. Based on the survey, 14 people have come across stalkers or people

who follow another person avidly because of vindictive purposes. The third

common problem among SNS communities is hacking. Hacking is a case

wherein an individual manipulates another person’s profile without the

person’s knowledge. A total of 7 people say that their profiles have in hacked.

On the other hand, online abuses such as online sexual harassment and

trolling have not been a problem among the surveyed people.

32

The researchers found out that only 48% of the over-all surveyed

population or 24 people out of 50 reads the Terms and Conditions that govern

a social networking website. Terms and Condition are like laws posted upon

the first stage of registering in any SNS so that a person may read and obey it

within the SNS community. This statistic shows that a great number of users

do not bother to read the laws posted on their SNS profile and are therefore

unknowledgeable regarding the rules they need to abide.

33

This is a graphical representation showing the number of users who

does the following precautionary measures to protect their privacy. Based on

their answers, a total of 26 people say they protect their privacy through

limiting their profile availability to their acquaintances. Some of these people

are also included to the 25 individuals who try to protect their privacy by
avoiding strangers to be part of their group of friends. The researchers also

found out that 2 SNS users know that their privacy is at risk but does not do

anything to protect it while one out of all the surveyed individuals is

unknowledgeable that their privacy is at risk.

34

Based on the findings gathered from the survey that the researchers

facilitated, Facebook users also use other Social Networking Sites like

Friendster, Multiply, etc. These findings are represented through the graph

above. 32 of the respondent said that they are using Friendster, some of

these respondents may also be a part of the 16 persons that are discovered

to be using Multiply. 6 out of the 50 respondents also use MySpace while 17

individuals also use Twitter and 10 respondents use other Social Networking

Sites.This figures manifests that a person may be a part of more than one

Social Networking Site community.

35

Chapter 5

Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation

 Social Networking Websites (SNS), like Facebook, are used by million

members because of its use to people of all nationalities, ages, genders, and

occupations. SNS members patronize these websites because of the variety

of features it offers. A member of the virtual community created on social

networking websites may communicate with other members of the site,

upload videos and/or pictures, play games or add up friends if they desire,

regardless of the person’s identity. Through the mentioned features of SNS, a

person risks his privacy unknowingly because their uploaded files (e.g. photos

or videos) will be accessible to the public whether they like it or not. These

problems result to doubt on the SNS’s ability to protect its member’s privacy.

Being a victim of privacy violations on social networking websites may

be avoided if the user and the site manager act together against violators.

SNS are not completely safe despite laws on website usage because of the

great number of members who work on it. SNS managers cannot always track

down violators, hackers or stalkers in their website so a member must always

be alert against any questionable activity or members to protect themselves.

Summary:

1. The common problems on social networking sites include

stalking, spamming, criticism and embarrassment from other members

of the website. Cyber Stalking is a crime wherein a person intentionally

36

and persistently follows a user’s activity without legitimate or legal

reason. Criticism is usually connected with harassment wherein a

 person says or does any offensive behavior that may cause

embarrassment for the intended receiver.

2. People use Social Networking Sites because of the features and

benefits it offers. Such features are the ease of communication to long-

distance acquaintances through the use of chatting or messaging,

business reated activities, entertainment-related benefits like games

and applications and widening one’s group of friends. All of these

feature available to every user with just a click on the mouse.

3. Because of the growing number of Social Networking Sites,

users have a lot of option to choose from depending on what they want

to use. Aside from Facebook, other SNS used by individuals are

Multiply, Twitter, MySpace and Friendster. Twitter and MySpace are

much more popular in other countries than here in the Philippines.

Friendster is also popular here but Facebook has surpassed it and

eventually Filipinos has turned to Facebook for networking.

4. Terms and Conditions are like laws posted or applied in SNS

and are presented to the user upon his/her registration to the website.

Common rules known by users governing a social networking site is

37
 the law against malicious posting of pictures or information.

5. A user might protect his/her privacy by avoiding excess uploads

of information, photos, videos, etc. He/She must always be vigilant or

alert against online abusers or violators. Limiting activities like games

and application also helps because information about the user

submitted in using these features are not held by the SNS’s

management but rather to the game’s creator and SNS are not held

responsible for any privacy violations created through these. The most

important way to protect a user’s privacy is to read the terms and

conditions governing the site and abide the rules stated in it.

Conclusion:

The researchers conclude that Social Networking Sites are not

entirely liable for the user’s privacy protection. SNS members must also

take certain measures to protect themselves.

Though a person wants to upload files in his profile and widen his

acquaintances, they do not always take regard to the protection of their

privacy. As a result they risk it unknowingly and find themselves victim to

online crime without even realizing it id of their own volition.

38

Recommendation:
 The researchers recommend the users to protect their privacy by

means of being an active member of their SNS community. A user must

ask questions about the sites privacy policies if the user is not familiar with

it. He must report, whether it is a website or a person that they are

suspicious in. A user must be selective in the permissions he agrees to. To

prevent identity thefts or privacy problems, he must also think twice before

disclosing any personal information. He must use strong passwords, and

avoid showing his e-mail to the public.

Regardless of the internet’s beauty and the SNS’s advantages, an

individual must always remember that there are still faults to these two. By

being an active and vigilant member of the SNS community, a person not

only protects his privacy but also help other members lessen the possibility

of privacy violations in Social Networking Websites.

39

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www.antionline.com/index.php

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Appendices
Age:___ Social Status: [ ] Student [ ] Employee

Introduction:

The answers and information that will be gathered in this survey will be

kept private and will only be used for the researchers’ thesis about social

networking websites, specifically Facebook.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Direction: Please choose your preferred answer.

1. How often do you visit your Facebook profile in a day?

a. Once

b. Twice

c. Thrice

d. Four time or more

e. Never

1. Why do you use Facebook?

a. For entertainment purposes such as games and applications

b. For communication such as chatting

c. For business purposes

d. For gathering friends

e. Others (Specify) __________________________________

1. What problems have you encountered in using Facebook?

a. Being hacked
 b. Being humiliated/ criticized

c. Being stalked

d. Being a victim of online abusers

e. Others (Specify) __________________________________

1. Do you read the terms and condition implemented by Facebook? Why?

a. No, because it’s too long

b. No, because I don’t find it useful

c. Yes, because I know it’s meant for my safety

d. Yes, but I don’t take it seriously

e. Others (Specify) __________________________________

1. What do you put Facebook profile? (Check)

[ ] Pictures

[ ] Videos

[ ] Personal Information such as address or cell number

[ ] Opinions and Comments

[ ] Others (Specify) __________________________________

2. Do you use your real name in your Facebook profile?

a. Yes, so that my friends can easily find me

b. Yes, because I like to use my real name

c. No, because I like to use fake names

d. No, so I can be anonymous to others

e. Others (Specify) __________________________________

1. What do you do to protect your privacy in Facebook? (Check)

 [ ] I limit my profile availability to my acquaintances only

[ ] I avoid adding unknown people to my group of friends

[ ] I don’t even know my privacy is at risk

[ ] I know my privacy is at risk but I don’t do anything about it

[ ] Others (Specify) __________________________________

2. What other websites do you use aside from facebook? (Check)

[ ] Friendster

[ ] Multiply

[ ] MySpace

[ ] Twitter

[ ] Others (Specify) __________________________________