How Do Terms of Service Influence Social Media User Dynamics from A Privacy Anxiety Perspective
For social media platforms and users, it highlights the impact of privacy anxiety on user dynamics following policy changes, but the findings are incremental and context-specific.
This study examines how a Terms of Service update on X enabling default AI training on user content activated privacy anxiety and reshaped user behavior, finding that privacy anxiety diffused across user groups, leading to decreased engagement and increased migration intentions.
This study examines how a Terms of Service update on X enabling default AI training on user content activated privacy anxiety and reshaped user behavior. Privacy anxiety is conceptualized as a structural outcome of reduced control over data use, particularly among content creators. The study finds that privacy anxiety is activated within creator communities and diffused across user groups through inter- and cross- community interaction. As anxiety escalated, engagement declined and migration intentions increased. These findings point to an unresolved dilemma in AI-driven platform governance: how user trust and autonomy can be sustained under conditions of concentrated power and data-dependent business models remains unclear.