[Air-L] research ethics again - students and FB

Thu Jan 11 15:47:29 PST 2018

re: the terms of service issue, though this is by no means legal advice, I wrote up a legal/ethical analysis based on the also relevant recent LinkedIn case. https://medium.com/@cfiesler/law-ethics-of-scraping-what-hiq-v-linkedin-could-mean-for-researchers-violating-tos-787bd3322540

The ACM SIGCHI ethics committee (disclaimer: I am on it) also wrote about this issue recently: https://medium.com/sigchi-ethics-committee/do-researchers-need-to-follow-tos-f3bde1950d3c?source=linkShare-941ba1546cc4-1515714179

My personal take these days is that we should be thinking about potential harms - to both users and the company, and considering reasonable user expectations - probably more than legal problems though.

Casey

—
Casey Fiesler
Assistant Professor
Department of Information Science
University of Colorado Boulder

On Jan 11, 2018, at 9:48 AM, Michael T Zimmer <zimmerm at uwm.edu<mailto:zimmerm at uwm.edu>> wrote:

Further, the U.S. 9th Circuit just ruled that violating a website’s terms of service is not, in and of itself, a crime.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/ninth-circuit-doubles-down-violating-websites-terms-service-not-crime

--
Michael Zimmer, PhD
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies
Director, Center for Information Policy Research
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
e: zimmerm at uwm.edu<mailto:zimmerm at uwm.edu><mailto:zimmerm at uwm.edu>
w: http://secure-web.cisco.com/1YfJi_8C0EP86lue7f3TStYfEgePMINPqhp22u2M-fc5hMQNFjczP6vM00jLRKeA5wWccPwh6b5RAmQYypotRYNtlyhUZI4CpmlJVjnSeYCa1offGLgsWdU6akWwCe-KQsAV6bmHtZ81ux0bKh2QTWv2EoyBglH3SN0AghS1oYeXw_ByIrlUh3w5nbpvWKYgvHOquC3q5j468VZU0VksVov6m6TBnsHqUfZgFiNdNzI0fu2nIGgSNP6rtvfkCxP5qVPieKoQS-K-ZrKvAOX5YUnYaIYr5ji33v0qOplUdqDNDgT-8HzoXiZGRu-ha5_kLWHMk6x8yf55vFQ0xMCYJWopiFJqaThywaX4irE-FhQVsLBEwxy1rj2CcuhWdl_fuhUIw3nme3rOnoizWKhGj_0yoEP4SmnFjy1lvha-5N_iFsn8ybyeBCE8le0SIGlVo/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaelzimmer.org<http://secure-web.cisco.com/1YfJi_8C0EP86lue7f3TStYfEgePMINPqhp22u2M-fc5hMQNFjczP6vM00jLRKeA5wWccPwh6b5RAmQYypotRYNtlyhUZI4CpmlJVjnSeYCa1offGLgsWdU6akWwCe-KQsAV6bmHtZ81ux0bKh2QTWv2EoyBglH3SN0AghS1oYeXw_ByIrlUh3w5nbpvWKYgvHOquC3q5j468VZU0VksVov6m6TBnsHqUfZgFiNdNzI0fu2nIGgSNP6rtvfkCxP5qVPieKoQS-K-ZrKvAOX5YUnYaIYr5ji33v0qOplUdqDNDgT-8HzoXiZGRu-ha5_kLWHMk6x8yf55vFQ0xMCYJWopiFJqaThywaX4irE-FhQVsLBEwxy1rj2CcuhWdl_fuhUIw3nme3rOnoizWKhGj_0yoEP4SmnFjy1lvha-5N_iFsn8ybyeBCE8le0SIGlVo/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaelzimmer.org>

On Jan 10, 2018, at 3:37 PM, Dan L. Burk <dburk at uci.edu<mailto:dburk at uci.edu><mailto:dburk at uci.edu>> wrote:

So, although I am not saying that the study design is ethical, or even
necessarily a good idea, I would most definitely take issue with either
the specific assertion that violating an adhesion contract is always
unethical (it is called an adhesion contract for good reason), and with
the more general assertion that violations of law are always unethical.

Also, non-trivially, the assertion is a non-sequitur: minors generally
can't enter into binding contracts, so there is by definition no
contract for them to violate.

None of that means you should go ahead and do it; only that if you
decline to do so, it should be for some other reasons.

Cheers, DLB

Dan L. Burk
Chancellor's Professor of Law
University of California, Irvine
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2017-18 Fulbright Cybersecurity Scholar

On 2018-01-10 09:28, Christopher J. Richter wrote:

Dear Charles,

TOS agreements are most often legally binding. Requiring minors (indeed any study participant, but especially minors) to violate a legal contract, whether online or off, is unethical on the face of it.

Then there is the issue of deception, of whom and how interactions on the fake accounts are deceiving.  Deception, by definition, undermines informed consent. Will those who are deceived be debriefed? If not, it's problematic.

Christopher J. Richter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Communication Studies
Hollins University
Roanoke VA, USA

On Jan 10, 2018, at 4:44 PM, Charles M. Ess <c.m.ess at media.uio.no<mailto:c.m.ess at media.uio.no><mailto:c.m.ess at media.uio.no>> wrote:

Dear AoIRists,

What are your thoughts regarding the following?

A research project involves a small number of students, legally minors - and requires that they set up fake FB accounts for the sake of role-playing in an educational context?
Of course, fake accounts are a clear violation of the FB ToS.

I know we've discussed the ethics of researchers doing this (with mixed results, i.e., some for, some concerned).

But I'm curious what folk think / feel about this version of the problem.

Many thanks in advance,
- charles
--
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<mailto:c.m.ess at media.uio.no><mailto:c.m.ess at media.uio.no>
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