How Anonymity Influence Self-disclosure Tendency on Sina Weibo: An Empirical Study

Abstract

The rapid development of the Internet leads to an increase in the variety and function of webapplications. As a result, the relations between network anonymity and users’ tendency to self-disclose becomemore complicated. On the basis of Sina Weibo, this paper explores the relations between network anonymity, riskperception and self-disclosure tendency. The present paper suggests two kinds of network anonymity, one istechnical anonymity measured by objective personal information disclosed on Internet; the other is perceivedanonymity shown in the subjective perception of agent’s anonymity. Four major findings are, namely, firstly,people tend to disclose positive information about themselves on SinaWeibo; secondly, two kinds of networkanonymity are related with each other. Specifically, network technical anonymity positively affects perceivedanonymity; thirdly, on SinaWeibo, the network technical anonymity has no significant influence on agent’s riskperception, while network perceived anonymity has negative influence on it; fourthly, network technical anonymityhas negative influence on self-disclosure tendency, while perceived anonymity has positive influence on self-disclosure tendency.