It’s Fine If Others Do It Too: Privacy Concerns, Social Influence, and Political Expression on Facebook in Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Abstract

Political expression is a focal point for understanding how digital media have transformed political engagement. Privacy concerns tend to impede online political expression, but this relationship is still poorly understood. Based on the theory of reasoned action, this study focuses on the role of social influence and institutional privacy concerns in political expression on Facebook. We draw on research on the privacy calculus to examine how observing the behavior of Facebook friends moderates the relationship between privacy concerns and online political expression. We use survey data gathered in 2023 from Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States ( n = 5,936). Across all five countries, we find that observing Facebook friends posting political content bolsters political expression on Facebook, as per our preregistered analysis. In all countries except Germany, privacy concerns impede political expression on Facebook. Also, the importance of institutional privacy concerns for political expression depends on the observed posting behavior of Facebook friends. This moderated effect is only observed in three of the five examined countries, however. Our findings offer new insights into the factors that encourage and discourse political expression, particularly on Facebook which is a platform that has been widely criticized for failing to protect its users’ privacy.