Breaking bad online: a synthesis of the darker sides of social networking sites

Demetis, Dionysios

Abstract

This essay deconstructs the ultra-dark side of social media and explores the variety of ‘bad’ behaviour online by looking at a wide spectrum of exploitative practices. Through the use of primary data from an online platform, we posit the question ‘What’s the worst thing you’ve done online’? We collect, code and synthesise the fully anonymised discussions and develop a classification model for bad online behaviour. We combine the categories that emerge from our empirical data with those proposed by Baccarella et al. (2018) and develop a new combined (meta-) classification model that captures both the dark side of social networking and the ultra-dark. A framework is proposed for conceptualising the spectrum of exploitative practices and the essay concludes by providing a series of management considerations.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2019-12
• Journal: European Management Journal
• Print ISSN: 0263-2373
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• APA6 Citation: Demetis, D. (2019). Breaking bad online: a synthesis of the darker sides of social networking sites. European Management Journal, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2019.12.013
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2019.12.013
• Keywords: social media; social networking; dark side; cybersecurity; cybercrime
• Publisher URL: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/european-management-journal/