Perspectives of Non-Expert Users on Cyber Security and Privacy: An Analysis of Online Discussions on Twitter
Nandita Pattnaik, Shujun Li, Jason R.C. Nurse

TL;DR
This study analyzes a large dataset of tweets over three years to understand non-expert users' perspectives on cybersecurity and privacy, revealing trends, concerns, and sentiment shifts, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Contribution
It introduces a large-scale analysis of Twitter data using machine learning to explore non-expert cybersecurity and privacy perceptions over multiple years and pandemic impact.
Findings
54% increase in related tweets during 2021
Higher help-seeking tweets during COVID-19
Consistent negative sentiment across topics
Abstract
Current research on users` perspectives of cyber security and privacy related to traditional and smart devices at home is very active, but the focus is often more on specific modern devices such as mobile and smart IoT devices in a home context. In addition, most were based on smaller-scale empirical studies such as online surveys and interviews. We endeavour to fill these research gaps by conducting a larger-scale study based on a real-world dataset of 413,985 tweets posted by non-expert users on Twitter in six months of three consecutive years (January and February in 2019, 2020 and 2021). Two machine learning-based classifiers were developed to identify the 413,985 tweets. We analysed this dataset to understand non-expert users` cyber security and privacy perspectives, including the yearly trend and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We applied topic modelling, sentiment analysis…
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Taxonomy
TopicsPrivacy, Security, and Data Protection · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection
