KE ZHANG ¹ Boya Han ^2* Jianfei Liang ^3* Chengyu Qu ^1*

• ¹ Soochow University, Suzhou, China
• ² Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
• ³ Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China

Social media users continually face challenges of unauthorized monitoring and access to their data. Beyond the illicit collection of personal information by others, the risk of privacy leakage also stems from users' own information-sharing behaviors. This study aims to construct a predictive model of factors influencing social media users' privacy disclosure behavior. Focusing on WeChat, the most widely used social media platform in China, this study collected 1,111 valid online questionnaires from users in mainland China. Through mediation and moderation analyses, our research reveals that users exhibit high levels of social overload and privacy fatigue. Privacy concern and privacy fatigue, as emotion-based coping mechanisms in response to potential privacy threats, are significantly influenced by cognitive factors such as perceived risk, social overload, and self-efficacy. These emotional states, in turn, affect users' privacy disclosure intentions and behaviors. Our findings offer insights into the cognitive factors impacting privacy disclosure and suggest approaches for enhancing users' privacy protection on social media platforms. Practical implications include recommendations for social media service providers to adopt more concise and efficient user privacy settings, thereby improving users' privacy management capabilities. Additionally, the study's results can inform policy-making and platform design, aiding in the development of effective privacy protection measures and policies.