Abstract

Through a survey of undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley (N = 151), we investigate the impact of familiarity with Facebook data scandals on user expectation of privacy. The results demonstrate that while there is no relationship between domestic Facebook scandal familiarity and institutional privacy concern among current Facebook users, there is a relationship between international Facebook scandal familiarity, with greater familiarity yielding higher institutional privacy concern. This relationship is similarly seen among former Facebook users. Regarding gender, there is no difference between males and females in institutional privacy concern on Facebook. While former users are less versed in Facebook scandals than current Facebook users, there is no difference in institutional privacy concern between current and former Facebook users, suggesting that concern for institutional privacy is not the greatest factor contributing to an individual’s decision to cease using the platform.