Towards an Ethical Framework for Publishing Twitter Data in Social Research: Taking into Account Users' Views, Online Context and Algorithmic Estimation.

Matthew L Williams,Pete Burnap,Luke Sloan

doi:10.1177/0038038517708140

Abstract

New and emerging forms of data, including posts harvested from social media sites such as Twitter, have become part of the sociologist’s data diet. In particular, some researchers see an advantage in the perceived ‘public’ nature of Twitter posts, representing them in publications without seeking informed consent. While such practice may not be at odds with Twitter’s terms of service, we argue there is a need to interpret these through the lens of social science research methods that imply a more reflexive ethical approach than provided in ‘legal’ accounts of the permissible use of these data in research publications. To challenge some existing practice in Twitter-based research, this article brings to the fore: (1) views of Twitter users through analysis of online survey data; (2) the effect of context collapse and online disinhibition on the behaviours of users; and (3) the publication of identifiable sensitive classifications derived from algorithms.

Highlights

The recent surge in social media uptake and the programmatic availability of vast amounts of ‘public’ online interactional data to researchers have created fundamental methodological and technical challenges and opportunities for social science
Seventy-six per cent knew that when accepting terms of service they were providing consent for some of their information to be accessed by third parties
Over 90 per cent of respondents agreed that they would want to remain anonymous in publications stemming from Twitter research based in university settings

Summary

Introduction

The recent surge in social media uptake and the programmatic availability of vast amounts of ‘public’ online interactional data to researchers have created fundamental methodological and technical challenges and opportunities for social science. Awan (2014), Innes et al (2016) and Roberts et al (2017) published highly sensitive Twitter content without any valid attempt to protect the privacy or, to the best of our knowledge, to gain the informed consent of users.. Awan (2014), Innes et al (2016) and Roberts et al (2017) published highly sensitive Twitter content without any valid attempt to protect the privacy or, to the best of our knowledge, to gain the informed consent of users.1 These and other papers fail to include a single mention of the ethics of conducting social media research, leaving open the questions whether these researchers had effectively engaged with existing learned society guidelines or the emerging literature in this area. What is deeply problematic about these practices is that they have the potential to make sensitive personal information identifiable beyond the context it was intended for, and under some conditions, the publication of these data may expose users to harm

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