Users' Strategies for Ensuring Trust, Privacy, and Safety on Facebook Marketplace: Challenges and Recommendations

We conducted semi-structured interviews with Facebook Marketplace users to gain insights into their strategies for ensuring Trust, Privacy, and Safety (TPS). Our investigation uncovered a range of approaches participants employed. We discovered that users actively sought to convey their trustworthiness to other users while also assessing the trustworthiness of others. Furthermore, they took steps to safeguard their privacy by selectively sharing information and making thoughtful decisions regarding payments. Participants also implemented various strategies to mitigate the risks of physical harm and financial losses, sometimes resulting in preferences that were conflicted between buyers and sellers. Drawing from these findings, we offer recommendations to aid users in evaluating others' trustworthiness, effectively communicating their own trustworthiness, achieving a more optimal balance between privacy and trust, and increasing awareness of potential risks associated with different payment methods.