Mobile social networks (MSNs) are specific types of social media whichconsolidate the ability of omnipresent connection for mobile users/devices toshare user-centric data objects among interested users. Taking advantage of thecharacteristics of both social networks and opportunistic networks, MSNs arecapable of providing an efficient and effective mobile environment for users toaccess, share, and distribute data. However, lack of a protectiveinfrastructure in these networks has turned them in to convenient targets forvarious perils. This is the main impulse why MSNs carry disparate and intricatesafety concerns and embrace divergent safety challenging problems. In thispaper, we aim to provide a clear categorization on safety challenges and a deepexploration over some recent solutions in MSNs. This work narrows the safetychallenges and solution techniques down from opportunistic networks (OppNets)and delay tolerant networks (DTNs) to MSNs with the hope of covering all thework proposed around security, privacy and trust in MSNs. To conclude, severalmajor open research issues are discussed and future research directions areoutlined.
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