[Air-L] a question about privacy protection and copyright in Internet research

[jeremy hunsinger]

if you are dealing with texts, you are not dealing with research subjects.  the question is to determine whether you are dealing with texts vs subjects goes like this in the U.S.  If i am intervening in the person's affairs or personal information, then I am treating them as a subject.  If i am dealing with texts published and fixed in manner that does not require me to do anything other than to read or interact with the texts, then, there are no subjects.  You are researching an object.  If i were researching facebook, I would probably be researching a series of texts, preferably that i recovered from archives accessible by the public.   I could imagine that one could research facebook in a way that required them to participate in and interact with communities and peoples there, though.  Once you interact with people or people's personal information, then you have questions.  

However, if the persons make their personal information accessible in publicly retrievable archives, i want to be very clear here... that information is public and still textual.  I am not on the side of the privacy advocates that seem to argue that if a person makes their personal information public, that moves the public into the private.  I argue that the public stays public, and their information is now public.  If it was published in a newspaper, it would be public, if it were recorded in congressional records, it would be public, and if they post it on a website that is accessible to all, even if it was very private, it is now public.  This of course is tempered by the understanding that if one can discern that the person posting the material might be a child or other protected group, then there may be further questions, but even then, from what i've seen if it was in a public document it should probably be treated as a text still.  

keep in mind, that these are my opinions and arguments; I take them forth here and elsewhere and some people vehemently disagree with them.  My position is that there is a public and publishing makes things public, and there is a private, and if you don't want it public, you shouldn't publish it.   I don't want the private to bleed into the public, nor the public to bleed into the private, but I see the line as very clear and I want it to be made very clear.  I don't want concerns about privacy to impinge the capacity to research of public documents, though others seem to promote that.  

On May 6, 2011, at 10:58 AM, Adi Kuntsman wrote:

> thanks, Jeremy
> 
> i did not assume it was public - but rather that some FB groups describe themselves as having "public content, open to all"
> it is more straighforward when addressing one's personal information on FB - terms of service or not, my first ethical obligation is to research subjects. 
> but what about those 'public' groups (and i deliberately put public in inverted commas here)? i am still not clear which situations require request of permission  - is it only when citing directly, or for any mentioning of groups?  -- and if they do require permission, i think its an interesting ethical question here about who owns the words: technically its FB but again, my sense of resesarch ethics and commitment is that it would be the group owners/admins
> 
> adi
> From: jeremy hunsinger <jhuns at vt.edu>
> To: Adi Kuntsman <adi_kuntsman at yahoo.com>
> Cc: aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
> Sent: Friday, May 6, 2011 2:54 PM
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] a question about privacy protection and copyright in Internet research
> 
> I would not assume anything on facebook is public or publicized other than things you can see on the open internet without login and even then those are copyrighted and as i recall have a license on top of the copyright limiting their public reception, but i could be wrong about the license as i can't find it now.  Your ability to use that will be limited by the terms of service of facebook that you agree to (and their api terms are the most flexible).  If you need permissions beyond those provided, then i think you need to ask facebook.  
> 
> what i assume would be public if anything from facebook is anything that you would find preserved in a system like archive.org, the library of congress of the u.s. or the british library.  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On May 6, 2011, at 9:44 AM, Adi Kuntsman wrote:
> 
> > .. so, for example, in case of a 'public' FB group (loging required but noone needs to accept/friend you to be able to see it) - is it public or private and who, if any, should be asked for permission to research and cite?
> > 
> > thanks for advice
> > 
> > -- 
> > 
> > Dr. Adi Kuntsman 
> > Simon Research Fellow 
> > Department of Anthropology/ 
> > Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures 
> > The University of Manchester 
> > Second Floor, Arthur Lewis Building, room 2.007 
> > Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK 
> > http://adi.kuntsman.googlepages.com 
> > From: jeremy hunsinger <jhuns at vt.edu>
> > To: aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
> > Sent: Friday, May 6, 2011 2:32 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Air-L] a question about privacy protection and copyright in Internet research
> > 
> > yes, check login status, i agree.    facebook is an odd case because of their terms of service.    but if you cannot see something because you are not logged in, then you have questions of privacy much more significantly.  most of my research currently deals with things that are a. no login (published blogs) or b. login required but company releases the necessary rights to material that may be openly viewed  and anyone can login and openly view(second life).  there are other issues in both because both can have private channels and sections, but i don't research those.  
> > On May 6, 2011, at 9:16 AM, Radhika Gajjala wrote:
> > 
> > > good points
> > > 
> > > also if you are seeing something because you are a friend or in a circle
> > > -that reqd the user to "accept" you - it may be considered pvt
> > > 
> > > (as in FB)
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > Jeremy Hunsinger
> > Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
> > Virginia Tech
> > 
> > http://www.stswiki.org/  sts wiki
> > http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/  Transdisciplinary Studies:the book series
> > 
> > I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
> > -Pablo Picasso
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> > 
> > 
> > 
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> 
> Jeremy Hunsinger
> Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
> Virginia Tech
> 
> 
> 
> Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
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jeremy hunsinger
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
Virginia Tech


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