Evaluation of users' privacy concerns by checking of their WhatsApp status

Abstract

Summary WhatsApp Messenger is a popular instant messenger among Iranian users. The WhatsApp status feature provides the possibility of posting desired content without restrictions in terms of type with the capability of being managed by users. Status can be considered as a potential place to express users' feelings, opinions, and thoughts. However, special attention should be paid to the privacy of users and the information published in this manner because access to the content of a user's status by unauthorized friends and interpretations of the user's status content may violate his/her privacy. This study investigates the privacy issues associated with information shared through status. The data of this study were gathered via access to the status content of 4000 Iranian users and via telephone interviews conducted with 350 of them. In this study, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods has been used to analyze the data. This study focuses on the extraction of patterns in users' status content, determination of their polarity, and examination of the factors affecting users' privacy concerns. During the research, 10 general themes were extracted from users' content. The results showed that user privacy concerns influenced the type of theme selected. In addition, the theme selected under different circumstances may include a type of feeling that, in this study, is called polarity. Polarity is affected by the users' privacy concerns. Moreover, the demographic characteristics of users (age and gender) have a significant relationship with the type of theme used and their privacy concerns.

Leisure time posts on WhatsApp status drive travel and tourism consumption

“…Burke et al (2011) found that additional features of various social media platforms force users to change how they post and share experiences, resulting in exciting outcomes. Similarly, the status application of WhatsApp has become an emerging social media tool among users these days, where they love to share their leisure time experiences (Malekhosseini et al, 2018). At the same time, other users associated with that loop are attracted to express their feelings by seeing the posts shared on it (News18.com, 2017).…”

“…Thus, travel experiences shared on social media are not only about updating an individual or group's leisure time in an expressive way, but also inspiring others, to plan their trips and ultimately support the travel and tourism industry (Kim and Tussyadiah, 2013). The WhatsApp status tool is one of the recent social media platforms these days, which has greatly influenced the posting behavior of travelers (Malekhosseini et al, 2018). Hence, we posit the hypotheses as follows:…”

“…More recently, WhatsApp has emerged as the most popular social media tool among all age groups of users (Dorwal et al , 2016). Specifically, updating status is an incredible tool of WhatsApp that allows posting and sharing desired content without any constraints (Malekhosseini et al , 2018). Often, most users like to post and share their recent personal and lovely moments on it (Kaufmann and Peil, 2019).…”

“…It is estimated that 89% of tourists like to take pictures and 41% of them prefer to post photos on social media sites (Lo et al , 2011). Mostly, people share pictures and videos of visited places on WhatsApp status, which disappear after 24 h (Malekhosseini et al , 2018). This compels other connected users in that network to see the posted status before it disappears.…”

The Investigation of WhatsApp Application in Android Operating System related to Digital Forensics

“…Malekhosseini vd. [15] WhatsApp uygulamasını kullanan kullanıcıların durum ve sesli görüşmelerde bilgi paylaşımındaki kullanıcı gizlilik endişelerini incelemiştir. Sonuçlar yaş, cinsiyet gibi demografik özelliklerine bağlı olmak ile beraber kullanıcıların çoğunluğunda gizlilik kaygısının yüksek olduğunu göstermiştir.…”