Abstract

User privacy and self-disclosure perspectives have been studied in great detail within e-commerce and social networking contexts. While many earlier studies consider online user base religion- agnostic, this study bridges the gap in the literature by addressing the user behaviour factors associated with religious beliefs. The specifics of user behaviour influenced by religion, particularly fundamental Islam, are yet to be fully understood by current research. This paper investigates the effect of religion on the online privacy and self-disclosure on social platforms. We propose a model linking religious beliefs, privacy behaviour and self-disclosure and empirically test it. By using PLS-SEM, intrinsic religiosity (ROS), communication privacy management (CPM) is shown to influence self-disclosure. The results show that religion has an indirect effect on the self-disclosure through privacy concerns. The implications of this study are significant for policy and practice for social media companies and users.

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