Do You Have Two Minutes to Talk about Your Data? Willingness to Participate and Nonparticipation Bias in Facebook Data Donation

Abstract

Data donation is a novel approach to collecting digital trace data, where users are asked to download their retrospective data from a platform and share them with the researchers. Little is known about the willingness to donate data and the potential bias that may arise from nonparticipation. We conducted a study among over 900 German Facebook users asking them to donate two data packages. While around 80% of participants were willing to donate their data, only around one-third of them successfully did so. Trust in researchers positively correlates with willingness and donation success, and trust in Facebook is negatively associated with donation success. The framing of the data donation request did not affect the outcomes. We find no difference in frequency of Facebook use between donors and non-donors.