[Air-L] Ethical considerations of researching Telegram channels

[Tetyana Lokot]

Dear AoIR community,

In the spirit of ongoing ethical online data collection and research
issues, I'd like to ask if anyone has ever dealt with ethics permissions
for research on the messaging platform Telegram. As it is a messenger
service, even chats that are in essence "public" still require the
researcher to register for a Telegram account and provide a phone number,
so one might argue this is an obstacle for interpreting the channels as
truly "public". Have any of you grappled with this issue (on Telegram or
other similar platforms, e.g. WhatsApp or Viber) and how have you dealt
with ethics clearance at your institutions regarding whether this data or
these channels can be construed as public or private? I'd really appreciate
any experience you could share.

Many thanks!

Best,
Tanya

-- 
Dr Tanya Lokot

Lecturer, School of Communications, Dublin City University
O +353 1 7008595
tanya.lokot at dcu.ie
Twitter: @TanyaLokot