[Air-L] IRB Exemption and Terms of Service - Reddit.com

[Charles Tong]

Hello AoIR,

My name is Charles Tong and I currently working on my undergraduate
thesis in Sociology. Specifically, I am trying to construct a social
network based on reddit.com by data-mining posts and comments from day
to day. I am specifically looking to identify how consistent influence
and power is created on the website. I hope to do this by constructing
multiple networks from day to day of specific sub-forums and
differentiating between those who are one-time stars and consistent
stars. Then I will perform a content analysis of certain influential
posts to determine what makes someone consistently powerful or not and
in what ways they are influential.

Unfortunately, I am unsure of how this will pass under IRB exemption.
I am hoping that anyone on the AoIR mailing list may have some insight
that may help. I have attempted to e-mail and get in contact with the
website numerous times, but each time, they have not responded. I
understand that I will have to send reddit.com’s user agreement.

The user agreement states the following:
“You may not in any way make commercial or other unauthorized use, by
publication, re-transmission, distribution, performance, caching, or
otherwise, of material obtained through the Website, including without
limitation the Assets or Website Content, except as permitted by the
Copyright Act or other law or as expressly permitted in writing by
this Agreement, Service Provider or the Website.”

I was wondering if anyone knows how to approach this specific issue. I
understand that Fair Use might permit this research under the
Copyright Act, but I am not sure of its nature.

Thank you very much in advance for your help. Let me know if any
additional information should be provided.

Best Regards,
Charles Tong