Internet Surveillance and the Role of Social Media Companies

Abstract

Social media platforms collect and analyze large amounts of user data. This enables pervasive surveillance that shapes attention, advertising, and civic life. This paper asks: How do individuals perceive social media surveillance? How do those perceptions relate to privacy behaviors and demographic factors? Building on existing literature about targeted advertising, platform design, and privacy harms, the study combines a technical review of social media infrastructure with an empirical survey. The survey used Google Forms, with 127 responses from August to September 2023. Survey measures were ordinal-coded and analyzed with pairwise exclusion for missing data. Results show 72.4% of respondents believe their activity is monitored. Half (50.4%) are “partially worried” about data being sold. About 68.5% have either deleted platforms or are considering doing so (27.6% deleted; 40.9% considering). Statistical tests indicate a significant association between gender and worry level (χ²(8) = 21.091, p = .007, V = .228). The relationship between worry and deleting a platform approached significance (χ²(12) = 19.027, p = .088, V = .137). Age was not significantly associated with worry. These findings challenge generational privacy indifference and support targeted interventions for gender-specific concerns.