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Privacy in Online Social Networks: An Ontological Model for Self-Presentation

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Knowledge Engineering and Semantic Web (KESW 2016)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 649))

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Abstract

Online Social Networks (OSNs) have become an important part of daily digital interactions for more than half billion users around the world. Unconstrained by physical spaces, the OSNs offer to web users new interesting means to communicate, interact, and socialize. The OSNs exhibit many of the characteristics of human societies in terms of forming relationships and how those relationships are used for personal information disclosure. However, current OSNs lack an effective mechanism to represent social relationships of the users that leads to undesirable consequences of leakage of users’ personal information to unintended audiences. We propose an ontological model to represent diverse social relationships and manage self-presentation of social web users. This model is inspired from most influential social theories about self-presentation and tie strength. This model regulates personal information disclosure on the basis of social role and relationship quality between the users. We also present results of our user study, which demonstrates that relationship quality plays vital role to control personal information disclosure in social web, and quality of relationship between users can be easily inferred from user interaction patterns in online social networks.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    PewResearchCenter http://www.pewglobal.org/2010/12/15/global-publics-embrace- social-networking/.

  2. 2.

    Alexa http://www.alexa.com/topsites.

  3. 3.

    Nielsen http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/nielsen- globalfaces-mar09.pdf.

  4. 4.

    Facebook Facelifts Its Privacy Policy http://gadgets.ndtv.com/social-networking/news/facebook-facelifts-its-privacy-policy-226824.

  5. 5.

    Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-social-networks-bring/.

  6. 6.

    RELATIONSHIP, http://vocab.org/relationship/.

  7. 7.

    Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-social-networks-bring/.

  8. 8.

    http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/.

  9. 9.

    http://www.sparontologies.net/ontologies/pro.

  10. 10.

    http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/timeinterval.owl.

  11. 11.

    http://www.essepuntato.it/2012/04/tvc.

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Acknowledgments

This research project is funded by erasmus mundus joint international doctorate in law, science and technology, and administered by CIRSFID, University of Bologna, Italy. This paper is extension of our research work published in PhD symposium of ICWE 2016. The author also acknowledges valuable comments of Leendert van der Torre, Guido Governatori, Serena Villata and Silvio Peroni.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIRSFID, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Javed Ahmed

  2. CSC, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg

    Javed Ahmed

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  1. Javed Ahmed
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Correspondence to Javed Ahmed .

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  1. Leipzig University , Leipzig, Germany

    Axel-Cyrille Ngonga Ngomo

  2. Czech Technical University in Prague , Praha, Czech Republic

    Petr Křemen

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Ahmed, J. (2016). Privacy in Online Social Networks: An Ontological Model for Self-Presentation. In: Ngonga Ngomo, AC., Křemen, P. (eds) Knowledge Engineering and Semantic Web. KESW 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 649. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45880-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45880-9_5

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