[Air-L] Ethical problem in a Twitter reaserch

Tue Dec 19 09:09:30 PST 2017

Interesting discussion, thanks.

Below, my concern is both with those who wish to use children's tweets and also those who don't necessarily wish this. As regards the latter, my concern is that a general selection of tweets, taken as representing the twitter public in general, will generally include (1) some children identifiable as such, (2) some children not identifiable as such, and (3) adults, identifiable or not. To my mind, this renders collecting tweets ethically problematic insofar as the likely inclusion of some children should be (though generally is not) recognised (unless informed consent is obtained) and empirically problematic to the extent that such inclusion goes unrecognised and (as is also often the case) the researchers infer that they have an adult sample (e.g. by assuming that all tweeters are eligible to vote).

Best, Sonia

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles M. Ess [mailto:c.m.ess at media.uio.no] 
Sent: 18 December 2017 10:40
To: Livingstone,S <S.Livingstone at lse.ac.uk>; Lior Beserman <liorbeserman at gmail.com>; air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Ethical problem in a Twitter reaserch

As a small clarification of the clarification ...

I took the original post to be headed in the direction of wanting to avoid using material from minors, and that the primary question was then how to to do so.

Of course, as Sonia makes exquisitely clear, if the researcher does want to make use of material from minors / children, then a strongly different set of requirements comes into play.
Legally and ethically (to my knowledge), informed consent can generally be given by parents or guardians as proxies for the children - but within the boundaries spelled out, e.g., in the documents / frameworks Sonia points to if the research is within the relevant jurisdictions.

But however that may be, Sonia's plea for a child-rights approach is (of
course) also very helpful - in part as it points to the distinction I mentioned between what may be legally acceptable but what some researchers, especially from deontological (rights-oriented) and/or care ethics perspectives, would consider ethically requisite: namely, whatever the technical and legal aspects - what are the _expectations_ of the persons in play here?
There are many, many examples of researchers who, taking the latter perspective(s), have chosen to respect the expectations of privacy held by their informants, even when such expectations are not legally or technically supported.
Such respect then includes precisely respect for rights to privacy, and thus would trigger guidelines and practices for protecting those rights for minors.
I suspect that Sonia has considerably more than this in mind by a "childs-rights approach to research ethics," but perhaps this is one point of overlap?

Will, of course, be eager to see / read / learn of other perspectives and experiences as well.

again, many thanks,
- c.

On 18/12/17 10:59, Charles M. Ess wrote:
> perfect - thanks for the most helpful clarification, Sonia!
> - c.
> 
> On 18/12/17 10:35, Livingstone,S wrote:
>> Children cannot legally consent to use of their personal data, 
>> precisely because they are children. Hence in the US COPPA applies, 
>> and in Europe the General Data Protection Regulation., both of which 
>> require verifiable parental consent for the use of children's 
>> personal data. Much depends on the legal definition of personal data, of course.
>>
>> I would also urge a child-rights approach to research ethics. For 
>> instance, contrary to what many researchers believe, and contrary to 
>> companies' T&C, in my research children have told me that they 
>> consider Facebook to be public and Twitter to be privacy (cf 
>> Nissenbaum's contextual integrity).  So my understanding is that this 
>> is incorrect below, and that much social media research is improper....
>>
>> Best, Sonia
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Air-L [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of 
>> Charles M. Ess
>> Sent: 18 December 2017 08:58
>> To: Lior Beserman <liorbeserman at gmail.com>; air-l at listserv.aoir.org
>> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Ethical problem in a Twitter reaserch
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> one fairly standard approach is to go ahead and conduct your research
>> - though probably with the additional step of setting up a second 
>> database that assigns random identifiers to the original accounts / 
>> profiles.
>>
>> Once you have completed your analyses - then the question becomes 
>> what you need to include as explicit quotes in the publication / 
>> dissemination phase.  Typically, these are only a few - i.e., in 
>> contrast with 10s if not 100s of thousands (if not more) of texts 
>> gathered in.
>> Whereas informed consent is impossible for the latter - it is 
>> considerably more feasible for the former.  So one possibility is to 
>> contact the writers you want to quote and ask for their permission.
>>
>> Of course, this will not directly address the question as to whether 
>> they are minors - and you're exactly right that this is a critical 
>> ethical (and, in many jurisdictions, a legal) issue.
>>
>> At this point, some will argue that this is not your problem - the 
>> informants have read (well, at least clicked through) the ToS and 
>> that such posts are by a kind of default public and so don't require 
>> anything more than acknowledgement (copyright to the author).  If a 
>> minor is involved, on this view, ethical obligations to vulnerable 
>> populations are overridden by a kind of legal coverage ostensibly 
>> provided by their agreeing to the ToS.
>>
>> Others - especially from deontological and ethics of care 
>> perspectives
>> - will argue that protection of minors overrides any legal contract 
>> established in the ToS.  How you directly ascertain the identity of 
>> someone on Twitter while asking for their permission to use their 
>> quote is, of course, not unproblematic.  But these days, it's harder 
>> to be a dog unnoticed as a dog on the Internet and so it might be 
>> more straightforward than say 10 or certainly 20 years ago.
>>
>> My 2 cents - good luck and looking forward to the discussion!
>>
>> - charles
>>
>> On 18/12/17 07:46, Lior Beserman wrote:
>>> Dear  Air-L Community,
>>>
>>> I have encountered an ethical problem which I am sure I am not the 
>>> first to encounter and so would appreciate your say on the matter.
>>> I am doing a discourse analysis on a twitter hashtag and I have no 
>>> way to discern that I am not using under age (under 18) users tweets.
>>> As there are completely different questions and guidelines to 
>>> research minors from an ethical perspective, I was wondering how 
>>> other people have dealt with this problem in their research?
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>> Lior Beserman Navon,
>>>
>>> Ph.D. Candidate
>>>
>>> The Department of Sociology & Anthropology
>>>
>>> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> --
>> Professor in Media Studies
>> Department of Media and Communication University of Oslo 
>> <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>
>>
>> Postboks 1093
>> Blindern 0317
>> Oslo, Norway
>> c.m.ess at media.uio.no
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> 

--
Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication
University of Oslo
<http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>

Postboks 1093
Blindern 0317
Oslo, Norway
c.m.ess at media.uio.no