General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was formally issued by the European Union in 2016, has gradually brought the ‘Right to be Forgotten’ (RTBF) into people’s vision. Given better Internet usage is a topic generally geared to global netizens, the topic of data protection deserves urgent discussion in more countries as well.
China’s Internet industry is developing at a high speed, while laws or regulations on data deletion/forgetting there are not systematic yet. The inappropriate collection, use, and dissemination of users’ personal data on the Chinese internet have been rampant, and these can negatively affect individuals (Kong, 2007).
Taking Sina Weibo as a case study, this study attempts to explore the relationship between Privacy Concern (PC), Self-disclosure Behaviour (SB) and the Willingness of being Forgotten (WOBF) in the context of Chinese social media. The analysis results from 554 questionnaires show that for Weibo users, the stronger the PC, the lower the degree of SB and the higher WOBF. Meanwhile, Weibo users’ SB plays a partial mediating effect on the path of PC’s affecting WOBF.
Hereby, the study proposes the first conclusion that WOBF is an independent dimension of information processing in PC. In other words, the two concepts are highly similar but not identical - RTBF emphasizes the need to delete “expressed” information. Future research on RTBF can focus on the differences in the interactive relationship between individuals’ online information acquisition, publication, storage and their willingness to be forgotten.
Additionally, an unexpected discovery on gender promotes researchers to further study differences in gender practice in social media. Because we found that the aforementioned mediating effect only applies to the male users group. However, in the female users group, SB no longer exerts a partial mediation effect in the path of PC affecting WOBF.
Therefore, the paper puts forward the second conclusion that the impact from specific dimensions like online gender violence shall be taken into more consideration when discussing ‘the right to be forgotten’ in real life. This is because, through 18 in-depth interviews (the participants were chosen on the principle of Judgement Sampling from those who have completed questionnaires and willingly leave their contact information), we found women in most cases use social media for the purpose of maintaining social relationship, while men likely use social media for gathering current hotspot information more often. Such finding also echoes previous study on the Internet and daily life. (Fallow, 2004).