Overall, this study reveals the vast majority of Facebook users believe both Facebook
the company and the user have an almost equal obligation to protect users’ information on
Facebook. This finding shows users expect Facebook to protect their information. However
they do not trust them with their information. Trust’s traditional orientation as focusing
on an ‘expectation of goodwill’ (Koehn, 2003: 7) is therefore not refl ective in a social
networking context. Facebook users do not believe Facebook the company has their best
interests at heart but believe they have a duty to provide control mechanisms to protect
online users to a certain extent. This view is supported by Hoadley et al. (2010) who found
that by providing protective controls to Facebook users their privacy concerns relating to
new features were largely alleviated. Facebook users equally have a duty to fully utilise
these control mechanisms. Perhaps trust is less likely to be a deciding factor within a
social networking context, thus supporting Wang and Emurian (2005) who believe trust
is context specific, and what may exist instead is the need for a partnership with shared
responsibility.