Thursday 05 June 2008
42% of young web users aged 16-24 know someone who has been embarrassed by information uploaded on to the internet without their consent. And 78% of the entire adult online population would change information they publish about themselves online if they thought the material would later be reproduced in the mainstream media.
These are among the findings of new research into public attitudes to social networking, commissioned by the Press Complaints Commission. It reveals the huge popularity of social networking sites in the UK today - with an astonishing 83% of web users aged 16-24 using them, and half the total population of adults online. Yet despite this popularity, only just over half of users (55%) think before posting information that it might later be used by third parties without their consent.
Public concern is demonstrated by the fact that 89% of web users think there should be clear guidelines about the type of personal information that can be published online so that they can complain if material published about them is wrong or intrusive.
Download the presentation on this research here