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Abstract

Political expression is a focal point for understanding how digital media have transformed political engagement. Privacy concerns tend to impede online political expression, but this relationship is still poorly understood. Based on the theory of reasoned action, this study focuses on the role of social influence and institutional privacy concerns in political expression on Facebook. We draw on research on the privacy calculus to examine how observing the behavior of Facebook friends moderates the relationship between privacy concerns and online political expression. We use survey data gathered in 2023 from Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (n = 5,936). Across all five countries, we find that observing Facebook friends posting political content bolsters political expression on Facebook, as per our preregistered analysis. In all countries except Germany, privacy concerns impede political expression on Facebook. Also, the importance of institutional privacy concerns for political expression depends on the observed posting behavior of Facebook friends. This moderated effect is only observed in three of the five examined countries, however. Our findings offer new insights into the factors that encourage and discourse political expression, particularly on Facebook which is a platform that has been widely criticized for failing to protect its users’ privacy.

Keywords

privacy political expression social influence social media Facebook cross-national

Introduction

The most common forms of online political behavior are expressive (Gibson & Cantijoch, 2013; Ruess et al., 2023), with users engaging in behaviors such as posting, sharing, or commenting on political content. Online political expression is inherently communicative as it is directed at informing and/or persuading others (Lane et al., 2022; Penney, 2017; Scheufele & Eveland, 2001). When expressing a political belief, opinion, or stance on social media, users also disclose information about themselves to platform providers. Political expression on social media, thus, is likely to engender institutional privacy concerns. The role of institutional privacy concerns in online political expression, however, is still poorly understood. Previous studies have shown mixed results, with some finding an inhibiting effect of institutional privacy concerns on online political expression (Ahmed & Lee, 2023; Parviz & Piercy, 2021), but others finding no effect (Blank, 2013) or even a positive relationship (Best & Krueger, 2011; Lutz & Hoffmann, 2021).

Based on the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975, 1980), this preregistered study (Boulianne & Hoffmann, 2022) explores the role of social influence in the relationship between institutional privacy concerns (vis-à-vis platforms) and political expression on Facebook. According to the theory of reasoned action (TRA), two types of beliefs—attitudes and subjective norms—shape behavioral intentions, and ultimately behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975, 1980). Privacy concerns are based on a subjective assessment of the likelihood and extent of adverse consequences from self-disclosure (Dinev & Hart, 2004; Malhotra et al., 2004), and can thus be characterized as attitudes.

In terms of subjective norms, we examine how observing Facebook friends posting political content signals the perceived social desirability of this behavior. In a systematic review of 821 studies, Shulman et al. (2017, p. 1192) conclude that “more than 80 years of social norms research has demonstrated the power of normative influence, defined as the process by which people look to referent others, consciously or unconsciously, as guides for how to act or think.” Accordingly, we theorize a social influence on political expression on Facebook. We propose that users interpret the observed behavior of their Facebook friends as an indicator of social norms.

Furthermore, we examine how social influence relates to institutional privacy concerns. We draw on research on the privacy calculus (Dinev & Hart, 2006; Trepte et al., 2017) to hypothesize that observing Facebook friends posting political content moderates the relationship between institutional privacy concerns and online political expression. We argue that observing Facebook friends’ online political expression signals both lower risks and higher potential benefits of online political engagement (Grubbs et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2021).

This study presents survey data from five countries—Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (n = 5,936), which were gathered in January and February 2023 (outside of any election cycles). We choose Facebook as it is still the most widely used social networking site across the West (Newman et al., 2022; Vaccari & Valeriani, 2021). We choose the five countries explored in this study as they (1) are comparable as large, Western, developed democracies with (2) a high degree of Internet and social media (in particular: Facebook) usage (Newman et al., 2022). However, the countries have (3) different legislation governing privacy protections (e.g., GDPR in Europe) and (4) in political science, these countries represent different “cultural zones” (Deutsch, 2022) with varying forms of political participation. Our findings offer important contributions to the study of institutional privacy concerns and political expression on social media by highlighting the role of social influence. The study’s large sample size allows for insights into cross-national differences, indicating a need for further examinations of contextual influences on the relationship between social norms and privacy concerns.

Privacy and Online Political Expression

Political expression is among the most prevalent forms of online political engagement (Boulianne, 2019; Hopmann et al., 2015; Skoric et al., 2016)—it is also the most frequently empirically examined type of online political participation (Ruess et al., 2023). Lane et al. (2022) define political expression as “behaviors that involve communication of one’s political views, beliefs, or identities to others” (p. 5). Barnidge et al. (2018, p. 162) specify behaviors such as posting and commenting on mainstream media content, creating original commentary or media content, discussing politics with other users in comments, and interacting with politicians or political groups. Social media, in particular, afford these forms of political expression (Boulianne, 2019; Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2014; Kim & Hoewe, 2023).

Online self-disclosure generally exposes individuals to privacy risks, that is, the risk of losing control over the spread and use of their personal information (Culnan & Armstrong, 1999). When using social media for the purpose of political expression, users disclose information both to the platforms they employ (vertical or institutional privacy) and to other users (horizontal or social privacy). Whenever users post political content on Facebook, this content will be shared with the platform provider. At the same time, platforms like Facebook offer various mechanisms to influence which users will be able to see this content (cf., Dienlin & Trepte, 2015; Young & Quan-Haase, 2013). Quinn et al. (2019) argue that lay conceptualizations of online privacy revolve more around social considerations, such as fear of social sanctions. However, once users have chosen to actively use a social media platform, institutional privacy risks are difficult to avoid. Indeed, Facebook’s handling and use of user data is largely hidden from view, which makes the potential for abuse greater (Pitkänen & Tuunainen, 2012). Facebook could be sharing these data with governments, political groups, corporations, or anyone willing to pay for this access.

Privacy risks depend on the practices and policies of the social media platform. Facebook has a poor reputation regarding privacy risks compared to other platforms. Facebook has repeatedly been the subject of well-reported privacy breaches, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, during which a political consulting firm harvested the data of millions of Facebook users (Morrow, 2022). In a recent survey of US citizens, Business Insider (2022) found that Facebook was the social media platform least trusted to protect user privacy and data. Lee and Yuan (2020) report that privacy concerns are higher, on average, for Facebook compared to Instagram. Hollenbaugh (2019) finds the same for a comparison of Facebook and Snapchat. These findings suggest the need for more institutional or platform-specific perspectives related to privacy concerns and political expression on Facebook.

Our research model is based on the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975, 1980), which highlights the role of attitudes and subjective norms in individuals’ behavioral intentions. Attitudes are beliefs about the consequences of performing a specific action. The more strongly individuals believe in a positive outcome, the stronger their behavioral intention. Privacy concerns arise from an assessment of the likelihood and extent of adverse consequences from (in this case) online self-disclosure (Dinev & Hart, 2004; Malhotra et al., 2004). Generally, privacy concerns tend to inhibit the usage of online platforms (Dienlin et al., 2023; Hoffman et al., 1999; McKnight et al., 2002), although the evidence for social media platforms is mixed (Baruh et al., 2017). Numerous empirical studies have shown that a large proportion of internet users are concerned about their online privacy (Eurobarometer, 2015; Madden & Rainie, 2015). The implications of these professed concerns for online expression, however, differ both by user characteristics and by social, legal, economic, or cultural context (Nissenbaum, 2004).

The empirical evidence on the role of privacy concerns in online political expression in a Western democratic context is mixed. Some studies did not find a significant relationship between privacy concerns and online political engagement (Blank, 2013)—or, surprisingly, even a positive relationship (Best & Krueger, 2011; Lutz & Hoffmann, 2021). Hoffmann and Lutz (2023) specify that this positive effect appears to be limited to higher-threshold forms of online political engagement that are more common among the highly politically engaged. Other studies, however, do find that privacy concerns negatively relate to online political expression (Ahmed & Lee, 2023; Parviz & Piercy, 2021). A negative relationship between institutional privacy concerns and political expression is more in line with the bulk of research on privacy concerns and privacy management (Baruh et al., 2017). With regard to our study examining the online political expression of Facebook users in five Western democracies, we therefore propose, based on theory of reasoned action:

H1. Privacy concerns negatively relate to the posting of political content.

The Role of Social Influence

According to Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), subjective norms are beliefs about the approval of others regarding performing a specific action (Ajzen, 1991). They are “the person’s perception that most people who are important to him think he should or should not do the behavior in question” (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975, p. 302). As we focus on political expression on Facebook, we propose that these meaningful or “referent others” (Shulman et al., 2017) can be understood as a Facebook user’s online social network. Numerous studies in cognitive and social psychology find that individuals learn social norms by observing the behavior of others, especially those in a position of respect or authority (Gross & Vostroknutov, 2022; Shulman et al., 2017). The finding also applies to political participation, as observing other users’ participation could trigger higher levels of political engagement (Vitak et al., 2011).

Generally, using social media for politics—professing a political stance, supporting political causes, reaching out to others to inform and mobilize—is associated with social norms encouraging self-expression (cf., Bimber & Gil de Zúñiga, 2022; Velasquez & Rojas, 2017). Yet users cannot be entirely certain about the reception of their self-expression by others (Parviz & Piercy, 2021). Previous research has shown that expectations of others’ approval or disapproval can both motivate or discourage online political expression (Matthes et al., 2018). In a recent study, Masur et al. (2023) argue that on social media platforms, users look for “cues” from others to learn about what is and is not appropriate behaviors. If others are disclosing personal details, then the user will also disclose personal details, contributing to a spiral of disclosure and establishing a norm for behavior (Masur et al., 2023). They find significant positive correlations between social norms and self-disclosure on social media.

Kim and Ellison (2022) argue that social media is particularly important for “social learning of political engagement” (p. 1) because of the following affordances: visibility, persistence, editability, and association. On social media, other users can see that one has expressed their views, followed a political candidate or elected official, or expressed interest in attending a political event (Kim & Ellison, 2022). This applies to Facebook but less so for platforms such as Snapchat where posts are ephemeral. Finally, social media differ in terms of the network or association features. On Facebook, users can follow each other (and politicians) and “like” specific posts; the observability of these activities can help identify politically interested users in one’s network and further the social learning of political engagement. Furthermore, there is a reinforcing effect in that if one sees that other’s political posts are positively received (e.g., liked), then users might be further inclined to post their own political content. We therefore propose:

H2. Observing friends posting political content positively relates to the posting of political content.

Finally, we propose an effect of seeing Facebook friends posting political content on the relationship between institutional privacy concerns and political expression on Facebook. Moving beyond the theory of reasoned action, we base this proposition on the “privacy calculus” theory. According to the “privacy calculus,” users weigh the privacy risks of an online interaction against its expected benefits—and choose a subjectively appropriate level of self-disclosure that is believed to maximize their net benefit (Dinev & Hart, 2006; Trepte et al., 2017). To that end, users take a number of cues into account, which signal, for example, the trustworthiness of an online service or the safety of an online transaction (Bart et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2004). Marwick and boyd (2014) point out that achieving privacy is contingent on the social norms of one’s personal network. Observing others engage in an online behavior can serve as a signal of trustworthiness or safety. In our case: observing Facebook friends post political content may signal that this behavior is relatively safe, and thus reduces the impact of privacy concerns. In other words, despite Facebook’s poor history related to privacy protections, users will allow social norms to override their privacy concerns and subsequently post to Facebook.

Furthermore, it could be argued that the online political engagement of Facebook friends increases the perceived benefit of one’s own political expression (Grubbs et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2021). Politically interested users receive gratification from engaging in political conversation with others. Posting political content, therefore, is often reciprocal (Goh et al., 2019); it is part of an online exchange (Hopmann et al., 2015) and can contribute to a sense of community. Due to network effects, the gratification derived from engaging in such an exchange increases the more others participate in it (Brady et al., 2021; Kim et al., 2021; Matthes et al., 2018). Observing others post political content thus decreases the perceived risk and increases the perceived benefit of online political expression, thereby dampening the effect of institutional privacy concerns:

H3. The relationship between privacy concerns and the posting of political content is moderated by observing friends posting political content.

Figure 1 presents the overall research model.

Figure 1.

Research model.

Cross-National Analysis

Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) propose that subjective norms are derived from socially constructed normative beliefs. Norms are thus not just shaped by the immediate social environment, but also the public sphere (Eckhardt et al., 2008). Applying this insight to privacy, Nissenbaum (2004, p. 138) points out: “Contexts, or spheres, offer a platform for a normative account of privacy in terms of contextual integrity. [. . .] There are numerous possible sources of contextual norms, including history, culture, law, convention, etc..” The present study examines five Western democratic countries with comparable levels of social media use, and in particular Facebook use (Newman et al., 2022). Yet, levels of privacy concerns can vary between these countries (Eurobarometer, 2015; Madden & Rainie, 2015). This may partly be due to diverging public or media discourses (Morrow, 2022), and the varying salience of specific privacy scandals or threats.

We might also expect differences in the proposed relationships because comparative political behavior studies have documented differences in the five examined countries (see review of scholarship and different theories in Deutsch, 2022). In particular, drawing on Welzel’s work, Deutsch (2022) uses the World/European Values Survey (2020) to identify 11 cultural zones and different forms of political participation. While she does not explicitly measure political expression as a form of political participation, she uses Welzel’s concept of emancipative values (e.g., self-expression) to understand cultural differences. These zones include English-speaking West (e.g., UK, USA, and presumably Canada), Protestant Europe (Germany), and Catholic Europe (France). Research has shown that the motivation to comply with normative beliefs differs by cultural context (Wirth et al., 2019). As such, the role of social influence may also differ cross-nationally (Bimber & Gil de Zúñiga, 2022).

Beyond cultural explanations, the proposed relationships may also differ between the examined countries due to different privacy legislation frameworks (Miltgen & Peyrat-Guillard, 2014). For example, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is important to understanding privacy in the European countries (UK, Germany, and France), but less relevant for Canada and the United States. Such differing regulative frameworks could affect users’ privacy calculus. We address potential cross-national differences based on the following research question.

RQ1. Do the proposed direct and moderating relationships between observing friends posting content, privacy concerns, and political expression differ by national context?

Methods

This preregistered study (Boulianne & Hoffmann, 2022) uses survey data gathered in five countries in January and February of 2023 (n = 7,500). The sample is based on an online panel with quotas in place to ensure representation of the population in each country (sex, age, education; Table 1). The survey was administered by Lightspeed Kantar Group to 1,500 people each from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Germany.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics by Country.

		Mean	SD			Mean	SD
Females	USA	50.70%		How interested would you say you are in politics? (1 to 4)	USA	2.69	0.99
	UK	50.84%			UK	2.61	0.93
	FRA	52.04%			FRA	2.40	0.97
	CA	51.78%			CA	2.48	0.96
	GER	50.84%			GER	3.03	0.92
	Total	51.24%			Total	2.64	0.98
Education (4 groups)	USA	2.10	1.08	In the past 12 months, how often have seen political info on Facebook? (1 to 4)	USA	2.75	0.99
	UK	1.86	1.07		UK	2.46	1.02
	FRA	1.80	1.04		FRA	2.34	1.08
	CA	1.93	0.99		CA	2.49	1.05
	GER	2.28	1.04		GER	2.37	1.05
	Total	2.00	1.06		Total	2.49	1.05
Age 18 to 24	USA	11.99%		How many friends do you have on Facebook? (1 to 5)	USA	3.21	1.41
	UK	12.06%			UK	2.89	1.40
	FRA	11.00%			FRA	2.39	1.29
	CA	11.99%			CA	2.85	1.41
	GER	9.00%			GER	2.58	1.33
	Total	11.21%			Total	2.80	1.40
Age 25 to 34	USA	17.99%		Privacy scale (1 to 5)	USA (alpha = .912)	3.53	1.10
	UK	16.99%			UK (alpha = .905)	3.47	1.04
	FRA	15.07%			FRA (alpha = .913)	3.35	1.06
	CA	15.92%			CA (alpha = .905)	3.52	1.05
	GER	15.00%			GER (alpha = .871)	3.15	0.94
	Total	16.19%			Total (alpha = .903)	3.40	1.05
Age 35 to 44	USA	16.06%		How often do your Facebook friends post political content? (1 to 4)	USA	2.50	0.88
	UK	16.06%			UK	2.18	0.89
	FRA	16.00%			FRA	2.12	0.87
	CA	16.06%			CA	2.23	0.84
	GER	15.00%			GER	1.99	0.82
	Total	15.83%			Total	2.22	0.88
Age 45 to 54	USA	15.99%		In the past 12 months, how often have you posted political content on Facebook? (1 to 4)	USA	1.91	1.11
	UK	17.92%			UK	1.58	0.94
	FRA	16.87%			FRA	1.64	1.00
	CA	17.99%			CA	1.57	0.93
	GER	16.00%			GER	1.48	0.87
	Total	16.96%			Total	1.65	0.99
Age 55 and up	USA	37.97%		Political ideology (0 to 10)	USA	5.86	2.57
	UK	36.98%			UK	5.21	2.27
	FRA	41.07%			FRA	5.36	2.46
	CA	38.04%			CA	5.07	2.39
	GER	45.00%			GER	4.77	1.90
	Total	39.81%			Total	5.25	2.36

The analysis focuses on online users who reported using Facebook during the past 12 months (n = 5,936). The large sample size enables us to analyze subgroups (countries) while maintaining sufficient statistical power. Like Masur et al. (2023), we use .10 as our smallest (standardized) expected effect size for all hypothesized relationships; as such, we would need a minimum sample size of 782 (two-tailed, .80 threshold) to detect an effect (https://sample-size.net/correlation-sample-size/). We exceed this minimum level in the country-specific analysis with 1,294 Facebook users from the United States, 1,168 from the United Kingdom, 1,211 from France, 1,299 from Canada, and 964 from Germany. The preregistration plan is available at: osf.io/97bq3. The data and replication files are available at: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/V247H.

The dependent variable is Facebook political expression. In their systematic review, Lane et al. (2022) identified three types of measures of political expression: general expression, feature-focused, and motivated expression. The motivated expression measures motives rather than activity, for example, gain attention, promote interest, mobilize, and/or persuade. Feature-focused measures of political expression are contingent upon platform affordances. In the case of Facebook, political content can be multimodal, such as a post or a comment on a post. Furthermore, Lane et al. (2022, p. 337, citing Barnidge et al., 2018) discuss posting and commenting on (a) mainstream media content, (b) other users, (c) politicians or political groups, and (d) the idea of creating original content. We follow this understanding of political expression in our study.

First, we defined political content as “current events in the world, news about elections, information about political figures, information about government performance, debates about public policy, and other political issues” (as advised by Guess et al., 2019). Then, we asked, “During the past 12 months, how often have you posted this political content on Facebook?” (never, rarely, time to time, often). Our measure thus captures both comments and original content posted on Facebook. On a 4-point scale, the average is 1.65 (SD = .99), with the highest average in the US sample (1.91) and the lowest average in the Germany sample (1.48).

The questionnaire also asks how frequently participants observe their Facebook friends engaging in this behavior. Specifically, we asked, “How often do your Facebook friends post political content?” (never, rarely, time to time, often). The average is 2.22 (SD = .88) on the 4-point scale, which means that respondents (on average) tend to report higher levels of posting by their friends than themselves (1.65). As noted above, the highest average for friends’ posting is in the US sample (2.50) and the lowest average is in the Germany sample (1.99).

We measured privacy concerns based on users’ level of concern related to the following topics (Lutz & Ranzini, 2017; 5-point Likert-type scale, not at all to very high): (a) Social media companies insufficiently protecting personal data (information leakage); (b) Social media companies sharing personal data with government agencies; (c) Social media companies selling personal data to political groups; and (d) Social media companies selling personal data to corporations to help them sell products and services to you. We combined these responses and then averaged the scores. The average is 3.40 (SD = 1.05, alpha = .903). The measure focuses on vertical (institutional) relations. We see value in this approach for two reasons: (1) it addresses a gap related to perceptions about social media companies and their privacy protocols; (2) we ensure that the two theoretical concepts are distinct (i.e., horizontal privacy concerns and observing friends’ behavior).

The analysis includes a number of control variables. Political interest was assessed based on responses to a single-item question (“How interested would you say you are in politics?” Response scale 1–4). Political ideology was assessed based on a self-placement question based on a scale of 0 Left to 10 Right with don’t knows and “neither left nor right” coded as 5. We asked participants to report the number of friends they have on Facebook, which we use as a measure of network size. The categories were as follows: 0 to 30 (1), 31 to 100 (2), 101 to 200 (3), 201 to 400 (4), and more than 400 (5). Finally, after defining political content (see above), we asked participants how frequently they saw political content on Facebook. “During the past 12 months, how often have you seen this type of content when you are using Facebook?” (never, rarely, time to time, often).

Gender was coded as females = 1, males = 0, non-binary = missing. Education was assessed based on a series of categories: high school or less, some college, bachelor’s degree and more than a bachelor’s degree. Age was assessed in a series of age groups to consider whether there is a non-linear role of age in online political expression.

Results

Based on the Preregistration Plan

Table 2 presents the results of two regression analyses using pooled results across all five countries (dummy variables included for country), with Model 1 focusing on the main effects, and Model 2 introducing the interaction term of privacy concerns and observing friends posting political content to assess moderated effects.

Table 2.

Political Expression on Facebook as per the Preregistration Plan.

	Model 1				Model 2 with Moderator
	b	S.E.	Beta	p	b	S.E.	Beta	p
Females	−0.148	0.021	−0.075	<.001	−0.149	0.021	−0.075	<.001
Education	−0.004	0.010	−0.005	0.676	−0.005	0.010	−0.006	0.610
Aged 25 to 34	−0.025	0.039	−0.010	0.518	−0.024	0.039	−0.009	0.537
Aged 35 to 44	−0.087	0.040	−0.033	0.028	−0.089	0.040	−0.034	0.025
Aged 45 to 54	−0.194	0.040	−0.074	<.001	−0.194	0.040	−0.075	<.001
Aged 55 and up	−0.410	0.036	−0.199	<.001	−0.409	0.036	−0.198	<.001
Ideology	0.053	0.004	0.127	<.001	0.052	0.004	0.126	<.001
Political interest	0.206	0.012	0.204	<.001	0.205	0.012	0.203	<.001
Exposure to political information on the platform	0.212	0.012	0.225	<.001	0.211	0.012	0.225	<.001
Network size	0.029	0.009	0.040	0.001	0.028	0.009	0.040	0.001
France	0.045	0.033	0.019	0.165	0.049	0.033	0.020	0.135
United Kingdom	−0.124	0.033	−0.050	<.001	−0.121	0.033	−0.049	<.001
Canada	−0.099	0.032	−0.041	0.002	−0.098	0.032	−0.041	0.002
Germany	−0.214	0.036	−0.080	<.001	−0.210	0.036	−0.079	<.001
Privacy concerns (H1)	−0.084	0.011	−0.086	<.001	−0.151	0.026	−0.154	<.001
Friends’ posting (H2)	0.276	0.015	0.246	<.001	0.166	0.041	0.148	<.001
Privacy concerns*friends’ posting (H3)					0.032	0.011	0.133	0.005
	r-square = .359, n = 5899				r-square = .359, n = 5899

Note. Males, those aged 18 to 24 years, and US respondents are the reference groups for the above analysis.

As expected, privacy concerns are negatively related to posting political content on Facebook (H1). Observing Facebook friends posting political content positively relates to one’s own posting of political content on Facebook (H2). The interaction term of privacy concerns and observing Facebook friends posting political content is positively related to online political expression on Facebook (Table 2). This effect directionally contradicts H3. This effect is statistically significant but small.

Going beyond the preregistered analysis, we split the overall sample into four groups based on the frequency with which their friends posted about politics (Appendix Table A1). We find that for users whose friends never post, the coefficient for privacy concerns is -.109; it is -.104 for those whose friends rarely post, and increases to -.119 (sometimes) but then falls back to -.060 (often). This could indicate a possible non-linear effect but it should be noted that the group of users with Facebook friends who “often” post political content is small (n = 404), which is below the threshold for statistical power (see Methods section). As such, the non-linear effect may be an artifact of this smaller sample.

Appendix Table A2 offers some additional robustness checks beyond the preregistration plan. Adding additional control variables (frequency of Facebook use; agreement with friends’ Facebook posts), removing country dummy variables, and changing the analysis approach from ordinary least squares (OLS) to multinomial logistic regression to remove all ordinality from the dependent variable do not change the key findings on the roles of social influence and privacy concerns in political expression on Facebook.

Country Differences, Beyond the Preregistration Plan

To address RQ1, going beyond the preregistration plan, Tables 3 and 4 present the proposed model for all examined countries individually. The negative relationship between privacy concerns and posting political content (H1) is consistent in all countries except Germany (Table 3). Across all countries (H2), observing Facebook friends posting political content positively relates to one’s own posting of political content on Facebook.

Table 3.

Political Expression on Facebook (Model 1), Beyond the Preregistration Plan.

	USA	UK	France	Canada	Germany
	Beta	Beta	Beta	Beta	Beta
Females	−0.088***	−0.079**	−0.055*	−0.022	−0.096**
Education	−0.018	−0.022	−0.040	0.092***	−0.039
Aged 25 to 34	0.049	−0.025	−0.003	−0.026	−0.121**
Aged 35 to 44	0.005	−0.057	0.007	−0.036	−0.158***
Aged 45 to 54	−0.067*	−0.093	−0.021	−0.057	−0.177***
Aged 55 and up	−0.238***	−0.215***	−0.139***	−0.173***	−0.231***
Ideology	0.136***	0.158***	0.037	0.164***	0.145***
Political interest	0.274***	0.195***	0.177***	0.206***	0.111***
Exposure to political information on the platform	0.193***	0.154***	0.345***	0.205***	0.218***
Network size	0.057*	0.011	0.044	0.021	0.059
Privacy concerns (H1)	−0.104***	−0.08**	−0.115***	−0.075**	−0.030
Friends’ posting (H2)	0.231***	0.296***	0.241***	0.196***	0.273***
	R² = .429, n = 1286	R² = .339, n = 1164	R² = .398, n = 1206	R² = .308, n = 1284	R² = .294, n = 959

Note. Males and those aged 18 to 24 years are the reference groups for the above analysis.

p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001.

Table 4.

Political Expression on Facebook (Model 2), Beyond the Preregistration Plan.

	USA	UK	France	Canada	Germany
	Beta	Beta	Beta	Beta	Beta
Females	−0.088***	−0.078**	−0.055*	−0.022	−0.096**
Education	−0.021	−0.022	−0.039	0.090***	−0.039
Aged 25 to 34	0.052	−0.027	−0.005	−0.025	−0.121**
Aged 35 to 44	0.005	−0.057	0.004	−0.038	−0.158***
Aged 45 to 54	−0.068*	−0.096**	−0.022	−0.058	−0.177***
Aged 55 and up	−0.237***	−0.216***	−0.139***	−0.170***	−0.230***
Ideology	0.132***	0.158***	0.036	0.162***	0.144***
Political interest	0.274***	0.194***	0.177***	0.203***	0.111***
Exposure to political information on the platform	0.192***	0.153***	0.345***	0.203***	0.218***
Network size	0.055*	0.013	0.043	0.021	0.059
Privacy concerns (H1)	−0.239***	−0.003	−0.237***	−0.189**	−0.079
Friends’ posting (H2)	0.060	0.414***	0.068	0.026	0.199*
Privacy concerns*friends’ posting (H3)	0.249**	−0.154	0.230*	0.230*	0.095
	R² = .432, n = 1286	R² = .340, n = 1164	R² = .401, n = 1206	R² = .310, n = 1284	R² = .294, n = 959

Note. Males, those aged 18 to 24 years, and US respondents are the reference groups for the above analysis.

p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001.

Comparing Model 2 across countries (Table 4), we find that the interaction effect between privacy concerns and friends’ posting (H3) is significant in Canada, France, and the United States, but not Germany and the United Kingdom. However, the model fit (explained variance) changes only a little with the addition the interaction term, providing further evidence that the moderated effect is small. However, our model fit is very high for the pooled results and the country-specific results.

Discussion

Research on the role of privacy concerns in online political expression is still evolving, increasingly differentiating between institutional and social privacy concerns (Best & Krueger, 2011; Blank, 2013; Lutz & Hoffmann, 2021; Matthes et al., 2018), various forms of political engagement (Hoffmann & Lutz, 2023), distinct political contexts (Marwick & boyd, 2018; Pearce et al., 2018), and online platforms. In this contribution, we focus on the role of social influence in the relationship between institutional privacy concerns and political expression on Facebook across different national contexts. We find that our core research model derived from the theory of reasoned action partially holds for the cross-national sample. Institutional privacy concerns are negatively related to posting of political content on Facebook, while observing others posting political content positively predicts posting. This confirms the positive relationship between subjective norms and online self-disclosure (Masur et al., 2023) for the specific context of online political expression on Facebook (cf., Bimber & Gil de Zúñiga, 2022).

Furthermore, observing Facebook friends posting political content does appear to impact users’ privacy calculus (Dinev & Hart, 2006; Trepte et al., 2017). Overall, observing friends’ posting increases the effect of privacy concerns on users’ own posting. Possibly, there is a normative learning effect involved in the observed pattern: When users see others post some political content, they may, at first, be insecure about how this data could be used by others. In our pooled sample, we find that privacy concerns do not significantly relate to user’s own posting for those who often see their friends posting. This finding should be interpreted with care due to the limited sample size in this category. Further research is needed on a potential non-linear relationship. Possibly, when posting political content becomes a norm within a network, privacy concerns dissipate. Also, the benefits of posting political content could be highest when users are embedded in a highly political network, so benefits may only outweigh potential risks at the high end of friends’ posting behavior.

This finding speaks to the importance of social network effects in online political expression. This study focuses on institutional privacy concerns. Various studies indicate that social privacy concerns (Quinn et al., 2019) play an important, arguably even larger role in online political expression (Matthes et al., 2018). Future studies should consider both institutional and social privacy concerns, which may entail examining user strategies for managing their exposure to online audiences. We add to research indicating a social influence on users’ privacy considerations (Masur et al., 2023). However, users’ social networks can also influence their exposure to political content (Vaccari & Valeriani, 2021), their interest in politics (Lee & Kim, 2017), and their willingness to be politically engaged (Bimber & Gil de Zúñiga, 2022; Velasquez & Rojas, 2017).

Turning to our cross-national comparison, we find that the hypothesized direct relationships between privacy concerns, observing Facebook friends’ posting, and political expression, if statistically significant, are very similar in size and directionally identical across all five national samples. Germany emerges as somewhat of an outlier, as privacy concerns are not significantly related to online political expression, and so neither is the moderating effect of observing friends’ posting. Deutsch (2022) suggests that Germany may differ from the English-speaking Western countries and France in terms of participation and self-expression; as such, the findings offer some support for this distinctiveness. However, given the EU GDPR regulation, we might have expected privacy concerns to operate in a similar fashion in Germany and France, which does not appear to be the case.

We find the interaction effect of observing friends’ posting and privacy concerns to be significant in the United States, Canada and France, with larger effect sizes in the United States and Canada, but to be statistically insignificant in Germany and the United Kingdom. This pattern does not support the proposition of a strong cultural influence, as both the United States and the United Kingdom are considered part of the English-speaking West (Deutsch, 2022). However, it is possible that public and policy discourses in the United States and Canada are relatively closely linked (Miltgen & Peyrat-Guillard, 2014; Morrow, 2022). So users in these two countries might be led to interpret their fellow users’ behaviors similarly. It should be noted, though, that within-country variance is likely to outweigh between-country differences in many of the variables we observe. Research on privacy concerns and digital inequality show significant effects of age, gender, education, digital literacy, or self-efficacy on privacy concerns, protection behavior, and self-disclosure (Epstein & Quinn, 2020; Hoffmann & Lutz, 2021), particularly when sufficiently accounting for marginalized communities (Madden et al., 2017).

Overall, though, our analysis reveals a high degree of homogeneity across the five Western democracies under observation. Future studies may want to compare different political contexts and apply measures of institutional privacy concerns more geared toward public institutions. A number of studies examine self-censorship and/or distinctive privacy protection measures in authoritarian contexts, such as Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan, or China (Dal & Nisbet, 2022; Kocer & Bozdağ, 2020; Pearce et al., 2018). Lokot (2020) and Liang et al. (2018) point out that some authoritarian regimes pressure citizens to maintain online visibility, and dissidents attempt to withdraw from or circumvent major platforms. Dal and Nisbet (2022) find that in authoritarian contexts, supporters of government policies engage in more online expression since they fear fewer repercussions. In democratic contexts, instead, those opposing government positions may be especially drawn to online political expression.

This study is subject to a number of limitations. First, this is a cross-sectional study which does not allow for causal observations. Second, this study is based on self-reports, so participants’ observed behavior may somewhat deviate from what they reported in the survey. We addressed this challenge by optimizing the formulation of our survey items (cf. Guess et al., 2019). Third, this study focuses on institutional privacy concerns and does not examine social privacy concerns. Similarly, our measure of political expression does not distinguish between posting original content and commenting on content. Tracking data could provide insights into this more granular level. Finally, we used 4-point scales to measure some of our variables, including the dependent variable. Appendix Table A2 presents a multinomial logistic regression for the pooled data as a robustness check to ensure that assumptions of continuous measurement do not distort the presented results.

Our research advances scholarship on privacy concerns, social influence, and political expression on Facebook using a cross-national sample from five countries. We build on existing work on privacy concerns in relation to disclosure on social media (Masur et al., 2023) but focus on political expression on Facebook. Based on the theory of reasoned action, we examine both a direct and, applying insights on the privacy calculus, moderation effects of social influence on political posting. Building on findings from the US on social learning (Kim & Ellison, 2022), we identify a complex relationship between the role of observing meaningful others’ behavior and the effect of institutional privacy concerns on political expression on Facebook.

Footnotes

Appendix

Table A2.

Multinomial Logistic Regression (Model 1), Beyond the Preregistration Plan.

	“Rarely” post political content to Facebook (14.5%)				“From time to time” post political content to Facebook (12.9%)				“Often” post political content to Facebook (8.1%)
	b	SE	ExpB	p	b	SE	ExpB	p	b	SE	ExpB	p
Females	−0.403	0.083	0.668	<.001	−0.479	0.094	0.619	<.001	−0.721	0.129	0.486	<.001
Education	−0.025	0.039	0.976	0.530	−0.076	0.044	0.927	0.083	−0.059	0.058	0.943	0.312
Aged 25 to 34	0.055	0.149	1.056	0.715	−0.074	0.157	0.929	0.637	−0.179	0.205	0.836	0.382
Aged 35 to 44	−0.254	0.155	0.776	0.102	−0.272	0.160	0.762	0.089	−0.437	0.209	0.646	0.036
Aged 45 to 54	−0.193	0.153	0.825	0.208	−0.589	0.167	0.555	<.001	−0.855	0.220	0.425	<.001
Aged 55 and up	−0.538	0.144	0.584	<.001	−1.321	0.161	0.267	<.001	−2.245	0.237	0.106	<.001
Ideology	0.040	0.017	1.041	0.015	0.126	0.018	1.134	<.001	0.254	0.025	1.290	<.001
Political interest	0.277	0.049	1.319	<.001	0.600	0.058	1.822	<.001	0.642	0.083	1.901	<.001
Exposure to political information on the platform	0.427	0.048	1.533	<.001	0.681	0.057	1.976	<.001	1.452	0.096	4.272	<.001
Network size	0.110	0.033	1.116	0.001	0.109	0.037	1.115	0.003	0.147	0.051	1.158	0.004
Privacy concerns (H1)	−0.191	0.043	0.826	<.001	−0.388	0.049	0.679	<.001	−0.460	0.068	0.632	<.001
Friends’ posting (H2)	0.378	0.060	1.460	<.001	0.753	0.068	2.124	<.001	1.141	0.097	3.130	<.001
Frequency of Facebook use^a	−0.205	0.063	0.815	0.001	−0.351	0.072	0.704	<.001	−0.105	0.113	0.900	0.353
Frequency of agreeing with friends’ posts^b	0.376	0.052	1.457	<.001	0.440	0.062	1.553	<.001	0.768	0.093	2.155	<.001

Note. For the dependent variable, the reference group is “never posting political content to Facebook” (64.5%). Cox & Snell r-square = .375, n = 5,834. For the predictors, males, those aged 18 to 24 years, and US respondents are the reference groups for the above analysis.

“During the past 12 months, how often have you used Facebook?” (never, rarely, sometimes, and often)

“When your Facebook friends post political content, how often do you agree with what they post?” (never, rarely, sometimes, and often).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability

The data and replication files are available at .

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant No. 435-2019-04-94).

Ethics Approval

The survey received human-subject ethics approval prior to data collection (File No. 102022), according to Canada’s Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS).

Consent to Participate

Participants in the survey had given written consent to Lightspeed Kantar Group.

Consent for Publication

Not applicable.

ORCID iDs

Christian Pieter Hoffmann

Shelley Boulianne

Author Biographies

Christian Pieter Hoffmann is professor of communication management and political communication at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies and the Institute of Political Science, University of Leipzig. His research is focused on online participation, trust, self-disclosure, and privacy protection in social media.

Shelley Boulianne is a professor in Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. She has held professor positions at the MacEwan University (Canada) and Université Catholique de Lille (France). Her research examines the global dynamics of digital media use for citizens’ engagement in civic and political life.

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It’s Fine If Others Do It Too: Privacy Concerns,Social Influence,and Political Expression on Facebook in Canada,France,Germany,the United Kingdom,and the United States

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Privacy and Online Political Expression

The Role of Social Influence

Cross-National Analysis

Methods

Results

Based on the Preregistration Plan

Country Differences, Beyond the Preregistration Plan

Discussion

Footnotes

Appendix

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Data Availability

Funding

Ethics Approval

Consent to Participate

Consent for Publication

ORCID iDs

Author Biographies

References