A Privacy Study on How Social Media Users Create Paradoxical Collective Behavioral Portraits

Abstract

This study investigates the group characteristics of WeChat users’ paradoxical privacy behaviors by constructing user portraits to fully understand the differences between user group characteristics and paradoxical privacy behaviors on social media platforms, and to provide users with personalized privacy protection and targeted services, strategy and specific instructions. This study takes WeChat users as the research object and uses the Vals2 attitude scale as a reference to construct a group image annotation system for WeChat users' paradoxical privacy behavior from the perspective of psychological preferences. By issuing questionnaires, the paradoxical privacy behavior of WeChat users was analyzed using methods such as factor analysis, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis. Clustering users' paradoxical behaviors in privacy to obtain data and characterize different user groups. Research results show that the group image of WeChat users’ paradoxical privacy behavior can be divided into three types: experience-oriented, mature and rational, and egocentric. This study proposes an ambivalent group behavior model of social media user privacy. In the future, we will modify the group portrait model and consider using it in other scenarios.