Privacy Paradox: Online Privacy Behaviors and Attitudes in Qatar

Privacy has been debated for centuries with scholars struggling to find an all-encompassing definition that collects the distinct features of this concept (Solove, 2008). With the spread of social media networks, the debate to define. It has been consistently found that online users worry about their privacy, while not taking any measures to change their online behaviors to better protect their privacy, in a phenom known as the "privacy paradox" (Barnes, 2006). In this thesis I look at the privacy paradox in regards to online users in Qatar and their understanding of privacy on social media networks by using a quantitative and qualitative survey distributed via WhatsApp to residents of Qatar. I argue that the privacy paradox exists within Qatar and online users do not find recent scandals involving the different social media networks a threat to their online privacy due to many reasons including their lack of understanding of the impact, the geographical nature of these breaches and their natural inclination to censor their own content by avoiding any posts that they deem private.