Social Media Ownership: Using Twitter as a Window onto Current Attitudes and Beliefs

Social media, by its very nature, introduces questions about ownership. Ownership comes into play most crucially when we investigate how social media is saved or archived; how it is reused; and whether it can be removed or deleted. We investigate these social media ownership issues using a Mechanical Turk survey of Twitter users; the survey uses open-ended questions and statements of belief about realistic Twitter-based scenarios to give us a window onto current attitudes and beliefs. Our findings reveal that respondents take a liberal attitude toward saving and storing the tweets that they encounter. More caution is exercised with republishing the material, and still more with sharing the material among friends and associates. Respondents approach removal of this type of lightweight social media most cautiously. The material’s provenance and the respondents’ relationship to the material (whether they are the author or subject) has considerable bearing on what they feel they can do with it.