Young Saudis’ Evaluations and Perceptions of Privacy in Digital Communities: The Case of WhatsApp and Telegram

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I have the following recommendations:

1. Introduction

- I recommend the authors to take care at editing (eg lines 55-62)

2. Related work

- I would name it Background of the research or Literature review

3. Methodology

- The methodology should specify the research aim and objectives, both for the quantitative as well as the qualitative research

- The way that the random selection of the participants (51) should be described more in depth

- How did you assure that each participant possessed a smartphone and have prior experience using both applications?

- Why did you take into consideration only participants with IOS smartphones?

- The methodology should explain in detail how the STRAP questionnaire was created and used; the framework of heuristic questionnaire is not presented

- The qualitative analysis methodology is not presented

4. Results

- The results should be presented related to the resaerch objectives

- I suggest to introduce a set of hypothesis that should be tested

5. Discussions and recommendations

- As the article research has no objectives, the dicussions is not structured based on a logic and coherent direction.

 

Author Response

Point 1: I recommend the authors to take care at editing (eg lines 55-62).

Response 1: Thanks for this comment. We reviewed these lines again

 

Point 2: I would name related work “Background” of the research or “Literature review”.

Response 2: Thanks for this suggestion. We agree with your point. We named section 2 “Background”.

 

Point 3: The methodology should specify the research aim and objectives, both for the quantitative as well as the qualitative research.

Response 3: Thanks for this comment. We added the research aim and objectives for both the quantitative as well as the qualitative research in the first paragraph of the methodology section.

 

Point 4: The way that the random selection of the participants (51) should be described more in depth.

Response 4: Thanks for this point. The researchers prepared a message that asks for volunteers to participate in the study. This message was sent broadly to different groups in Telegram and WhatsApp. We added this information in section 3.1.

 

Point 5: How did you assure that each participant possessed a smartphone and have prior experience using both applications?

Response 5: Thanks for this comment. When we received requests for participation, we made sure that the participant has experienced the two programs. We added one sentence to describe this point.

 

Point 6: Why did you take into consideration only participants with IOS smartphones?

Response 6: Thanks for this comment. The reason for selecting iPhone is its popularity in Saudi Arabia. We added some explanations at the end of section 3.1

 

Point 7: The methodology should explain in detail how the STRAP questionnaire was created and used; the framework of heuristic questionnaire is not presented.

Response 7: Thanks for this comment. The questionnaire was based on all the items of the STRAP, a framework generated by another researcher. We put these items in the form of a questionnaire with a Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly agree) was used. We modified and added some information to the methodology section.

 

Point 8: The qualitative analysis methodology is not presented.

Response 8: Thanks for this comment. The methodology for the qualitative analysis was thematic analysis. We added this information at the end of paragraph 1 in section 3.

 

Point 9: The results should be presented related to the resaerch objectives.

Response 9: The research objectives are predefined and this paper is extracted from a graduation project. We added the research objectives in the first paragraph of the methodology section.

 

Point 10: I suggest to introduce a set of hypothesis that should be tested

Response 10: Thanks for this comment. If we add hypotheses, they will be a repetition of the research questions. On the hand, it is better to introduce new hypotheses in future work.

 

Point 11: As the article research has no objectives, the dicussions is not structured based on a logic and coherent direction.

Response 11: Thanks for this comment. The research has objectives and they are added to the first paragraph of the methodology section.

Reviewer 2 Report

This article focuses on evaluating the usability of privacy on Whatsapp and Telegram from the perspective of young Saudis. The authors carry out a remote usability testing (population: 51 young Saudis surveyed), followed by questionnaires and interviews. The article is very well organized, providing an overall introduction in Section 1, and a discussion of related work in Section 2. Section 3 presents the study’s methodology, and then in Sec. 4 the authors present the results obtained for the different research questions. The research is complemented with a discussion related to recommendations for improving the design of privacy settings and policies in social apps in general (and in Whatsapp and Telegram in particular). The article concludes with Section 6, where the main findings of the research are presented.

In my opinion, the article is very clearly organized and very well written. 

A minor suggestion for an improvement in the article would be associated with discussing what makes the Saudi sample of 51 participants different from taking into account participants from other possible countries (a possible research question could be if there are any cultural aspects present in the results obtained which would give a different outcome if the survey had been carried out in another country or culture). Of course, I am aware that this would require a complete different and deeper analysis, but I think that the discussion is worth considering (at least a paragraph discussing it, contrasting it with related work). It must be taken into account that some apps are more popular in some countries than others (e.g. see https://engage.sinch.com/blog/global-messenger-apps-usage-statistics/ ). The research carried out in this paper, along with some cross cultural studies, can certainly shed some light on why some particular preferences could be present in one country or another (but clearly, this is a topic outside of the current scope of the paper). 

Author Response

Point 1: In my opinion, the article is very clearly organized and very well written.

Response 1: Thank you.

 

Point 2: A minor suggestion for an improvement in the article would be associated with discussing what makes the Saudi sample of 51 participants different from taking into account participants from other possible countries (a possible research question could be if there are any cultural aspects present in the results obtained which would give a different outcome if the survey had been carried out in another country or culture). Of course, I am aware that this would require a complete different and deeper analysis, but I think that the discussion is worth considering (at least a paragraph discussing it, contrasting it with related work). It must be taken into account that some apps are more popular in some countries than others (e.g. see https://engage.sinch.com/blog/global-messenger-apps-usage-statistics/ ). The research carried out in this paper, along with some cross cultural studies, can certainly shed some light on why some particular preferences could be present in one country or another (but clearly, this is a topic outside of the current scope of the paper).

 

Response 2: This point is discussed in the last paragraph of Usable Privacy of WhatsApp section. Dev et al. [41] analyzed the impact of perceptions, behaviors, and personal experiences on the privacy of WhatsApp users in Saudi Arabia and India. The study noted that cultural and social sites play a role in privacy behavior, as the Indian participants hid their profile and location information from colleagues and overlooked family and friends. Further studies added to the discussion showed that people in other countries have similar levels of privacy concerns.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments on the abstract:

 

Clear objective: The abstract clearly states the objective of the research, which is to evaluate the usability of privacy on WhatsApp and Telegram from the perspective of young Saudis.

 

Research context: The abstract establishes the context by highlighting the increasing popularity of digital communities and the associated security risks due to neglecting privacy statements and settings.

 

Research methods: The abstract briefly mentions the research methodology, which includes remote usability testing, questionnaires, and interviews. It specifies the number of participants (51 young Saudis) and implies a mixed-methods approach.

 

Research findings: The abstract states that the results of the study revealed privacy concerns in WhatsApp and Telegram, with one program being perceived as having the highest privacy by the participants. However, it does not provide specific details about the nature of these concerns or the program with the highest privacy.

 

Recommendations: The abstract mentions that recommendations for improving privacy are discussed, but it does not provide any specifics about these recommendations.

References:

Enrich your work by citing recent published work in the filed

https://journals.mesopotamian.press/index.php/CyberSecurity/article/view/78

https://journals.mesopotamian.press/index.php/CyberSecurity/article/view/71

 

Results:

Author need to represent the results in figures, graphs, and charts

Conclusion:

Add numerical results to conclusion

 

N/A

Author Response

Point 1: The abstract states that the results of the study revealed privacy concerns in WhatsApp and Telegram, with one program being perceived as having the highest privacy by the participants. However, it does not provide specific details about the nature of these concerns or the program with the highest privacy.

 

Response 1: Thanks for the suggestion. We agree with your point of view. We added some explanations in the abstract.

 

Point 2: The abstract mentions that recommendations for improving privacy are discussed, but it does not provide any specifics about these recommendations.

Response 2: Thanks for this point. We agree with your point of view. We added some words in the abstract to make this point clear. Additionally, we summarized the recommendations at the end of the “Discussions and Recommendations” section.

 

Point 3: Enrich your work by citing recent published work in the filed.

Response 3: Thanks for this recommendation. We added 10 studies that are recently published. Please see [19-22, 47, 52-56].

 

Point 4: Author need to represent the results in figures, grsaphs, and charts.

Response 4: Thanks for the suggestion. We added figures 1 and 2.

 

Point 5: Add numerical results to conclusion.

Response 5: Thanks for this suggestion. We added some numerical values to the conclusion.

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The content was significantly improved.