Study summary: The Problematic of The Right to Privacy via Social Media Sites: A Field Study

This study aims to achieve the fundamental goal of recognizing the extent to which some social media users – individuals of the sample - are keen on their right to privacy through these sites from the violation of others and voluntary personal violation, and its consequences. One of the sub-objectives of this study is to monitor the extent to which sample individuals are keen on following privacy protection procedures on social media sites, find out how keen they on posting personal content on social media sites, and how this relates to the gender variable. The study also discloses the extent to which the sample individuals are exposed to the hacking of their accounts on social media sites, and how to cope if this happens. The study is based on the uses and gratifications theory, as well as Erving Goffman's theory of self-presentation. This study is a descriptive study that employs a social survey method using the sample, size of 200 individuals gathered through questionnaires. Several findings have been reached: social media has become an integral part of the daily routine of all sample individuals, the majority exceeding 10 years use, Facebook. It was found that there was no complete concern on the part of the larger proportion of the sample individuals to protect privacy on these web sites. There is a correlation between the voluntary disclosure of personal data and the increased risk of hacking social media accounts. The right to privacy on social media sites will remain a societal right, and the individual bears the responsibility to protect it in the first place, in the absence of guaranteed protections measures on those sites.