The credibility of digital identity information on the social web: a user study

Matthew Rowe

Abstract: The recent rise in the adoption of Social Web platforms such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter has provided Web users with rich functionality and feature sets to interact with their peers and construct an online presence. The digital identity which Web users build on the Social Web is being increasingly reused by third party services (product recommendation services, authentication mechanisms, identity management services). The reliance on such digital identity information requires accurate and credible information. This paper presents a detailed user study of the digital identity representations which are constructed on the Social Web. The study explores the extent to which such representations mirror their real-world equivalent and therefore assesses the credibility of such information.