Veri Bilim Derg, 4(2), 72-79, 2021 VERİ BİLİMİ DERGİSİ www.dergipark.gov.tr/veri University Students’ Privacy Concerns Towards Social Media Platforms: Whatsapp Contract Change Ceren ÇUBUKÇU1*1, Cemal AKTÜRK2 1 Maltepe University, Engineering and Natural Sciences Faculty, Computer Engineering, Istanbul, TURKEY 2 Gaziantep Islam, Science and Technology University, Engineering and Natural Sciences Faculty, Computer Engineering, Gaziantep, TURKEY Abstract The recent Covid-19 outbreak has profoundly altered our lives. We have begun to communicate more frequently online than ever before. As a result, social media and social messengers have begun to play an increasingly important role in our everyday lives. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Whatsapp, and Telegram are some of the most widely utilized social media platforms. Whatsapp announced a change to its data privacy policy for end users in Turkey in January 2021. This shift has raised global awareness and concern about data privacy and security. This study will look at whether this change caused consumers to switch to other apps like Telegram or Signal as a result of the change. It will also look into whether there is a gender difference in how people use social media applications. For data collection, the study employs the survey method. A total of 489 students from eight different universities Article Info responded to the poll. Frequency analysis was used to analyze the data from this study. As a result, it was found out that majority of the users continued to use Whatsapp. In addition, it Received can be stated that participants do not have enough awareness on issues such as security of 05/07/2021 personal data and privacy. This study differs from others in the literature in that it focuses Accepted specifically on the Whatsapp contract modification and users' reactions to the contract change. 13/08/2021 Keywords: Social Messengers, Whatsapp, Frequency Analysis, Privacy Policy, Covid-19 1* Corresponding author: [email protected] ** Part of this work was presented orally at the IV. International Conference on Data Science and Applications 2021. 72 Veri Bilim Derg, 4(2), 72-79, 2021 enacted not only today but also in the past [7]. One 1 Introduction of these laws in Turkey is "Law on the Protection of The rapid development of technology in the past Personal Data” which protects data privacy in the few years and the expansion of internet over the electronic sense and prepared by the standards of world increased the usage of internet dramatically. data privacy laws in Europe. This law is adopted on Especially, with the recent Covid-19 pandemic, the 24.03.2016 and is known as “KVKK” in Turkey. daily operations and activities moved to internet. The content that a user produces and consumes on People have the opportunity to send and receive social media, and his perspective, tastes and information anywhere with the help of internet [1]. purchasing habits can be easily revealed by data As a result, more data started to be generated analysis. These qualifications are data that should globally. Individuals did not use the internet only be kept confidential. However, almost all social to perform some operations that would facilitate media platforms can process users' data legally. their daily work such as online shopping, banking For example, if a user wants to be a member of and e-government services. At the same time, they Facebook, they have to approve the company's started to use it for more fun and having a pleasant confidentiality agreement after filling certain time. Moreover, at the point we have reached, personal information fields. If not approved, the serious time has started to be spent in these user cannot use the service. When the user environments called social media or social agreement is examined, it is seen that the user messengers [2]. collects and processes all the data he / she has Social media or social messengers does not only viewed in the media platform, as well as the device provide communication between users, but also information, regardless of the user. Since it is are used in many areas such as playing games, known that there are millions of Facebook users, it obtaining information and searching. All of these can be said that the company has very valuable increase the interest in these platforms because data. More importantly, these data may be used for people can access many different applications by different purposes [7]. having social networks [3]. Facebook, Twitter, In January 2021, Whatsapp, a company of Instagram, Youtube, Whatsapp and Telegram are Facebook, announced a change in its data privacy among the most popular social applications that policy for the end users located in Turkey. It have been used worldwide. Every year new social showed this change as a pop-up when you open the applications stated to become popular especially application and asked you to approve it until among youth. For example; TikTok and ClubHouse February 8, 2021 in order to keep using the are newer applications which became popular application. The last regulation removes the during the pandemic period, 2020. The main previous statement saying "You may choose not to reason why social applications are being used share your WhatsApp account information with widely is that via these social networks, users have Facebook in order to improve your experience with the opportunity to create their own pages [4]. Facebook ads and products," implying that data Through these networks, users can see their age, sharing is now mandatory. In fact, this regulation place of residence, interests, etc. Besides, they can consists of the transition of a data sharing policy communicate with each other by uploading and that was actually realized in 2016 to the usage sharing photos and videos [5]. In addition, many specifications in line with the legal regulations. The activities carried out on social networks reach fact that this actual situation came to the agenda large audiences [6]. with the written declaration in the user agreement Due to the development of social platforms and the has created a great global awareness on data activities of users on these platforms, some privacy and security. In Turkey, as a reaction to this negative situations such as the sale or theft of user policy change, many people downloaded Telegram data have started to occur. Governments have and Signal applications which are competitors of imposed various responsibilities on social platform Whatsapp. Then, Whatsapp announced that it owners and users such as the confidentiality of postponed the approval of this policy change to data. The data is personal information that May due to the growing reactions of the end users. identifies the person and should not be shared. Dulger [8] analyzed this change from a legal Therefore, when we look at the data privacy perspective and explained why this new contract policies of countries, various laws have been change is against “KVKK”. Akgun et. al. [9] uses 73 Veri Bilim Derg, 4(2), 72-79, 2021 content analysis technique to determine the In the study conducted by Tektas [3] on 221 direction of user comments and movements after university students at Marmara University the WhatsApp privacy agreement decision of users Technical Sciences Vocational School, it was found between January 4-15, 2021. that female students spend more time on social In this study, the social media and social messenger networking sites than male students. A similar application usage of university students will be result was found out by a study made by İnce and examined and their reaction to Whatspp’s policy Kocak in 2017. It was concluded that the duration change will be questioned. As a result, their choices of social media use of women in a session was of using Whatsapp and whether they will switch to higher than that of men. Also, the average duration other applications or not will be researched. This of social media uses of university students study differentiates from other studies by participating in the study was 47.41 minutes daily. searching the perspectives of the users towards In the study conducted by Balci et al. [14] on 440 Whatsapp contract change. The study also aims to students who continue their education at Selcuk understand the consciousness level of participants University, social networks are among the most on issues such as security of personal data and visited websites by university students. According privacy. Moreover, the literature in Turkey is to the research made by Goncu [15] with lacking a study made with both social messengers Generation Y, uses and satisfaction for WhatsApp and social media at the same time. This study aims have been identified as the following categories; to fill this gap. socialization (social interaction), being free, practicality, multimedia (convergence), 2 Literature Review professional needs (professional) and In this section, other studies performed based on entertainment. Finally, Yazici [16] made a research social application usage and preferences will be on university students’ Whatsapp usage in 2015. analyzed. Studies based on Turkey and worldwide Considering the studies done worldwide and will be discussed because every country’s social especially, focusing on studies related to social media usages can be different than each other. messengers, researchers also found out the According to a research conducted by Hazar [10] negative aspects of them. For example, Yeoboah on 248 people at Gazi University, it is concluded and Ewur [17] proved that the usage of WhatsApp that 47.2 percent of the participants, that is has impacted negatively on the performance of approximately half of them, use social media to get students in Ghana. The findings of the study state the most information, followed by communication that WhatsApp usage has led to lack of with 23 percent.