Perception of the impersonation on facebook in the Egyption context

Abstract

Social networking sites such as Facebook have mushroomed very rapidly. Anyone with an email address can make an account as long as he accepts the terms and conditions of the website regarding privacy. There are several pages of celebrities, public figures and famous personalities being tricked by hackers on the Web. The real problem arises when a subscriber follows the wrong page taking it as real. The question then is how can a common user know, for sure, about a page if it is real or not? This study has been done to share the opinions from Facebook account holders. It intends to impart awareness regarding the phenomenon “Impersonation” on Facebook, which means the imposter sending a bad message from another account which made as a real account. It implies that there are multiple accounts carrying the same name though the account holder is not the same. This study has been conducted to assess the impersonation on Facebook in the Egyptian context. It shows quantitative research based on interviews in order to achieve results which are more illuminating. The ordinal data is collected and the analyzed using SPSS. The study uses a non-parametric statistical method through which it is easy to assess the result which could be then generalized. The study has a sample of 210 respondents whose perception about impersonation on Facebook has been checked. The study found that the higher the education level of Facebook users, the greater is the awareness and perception regarding the existence of impersonation.