[Air-L] Including screennames with tweets

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

Here are four questions that I always have in these situations.  I
don't really have solutions to these questions, but I tend to think
through them.

1. is it possible to even prevent discovery through anonymizing the
name/changing the tweet?  If I change the name, can the material be
found?  if i change the name can it be found?  if i change the name or
tweet, does it make the wrong person be found?

2.  Does this infringe upon the author of the tweet's rights?  for
instance if they are Canadian or other common law country, they have a
moral right to not have their words changed or their authorship of
those names without their permission.

3. is the 'harm' substantively different or substantively more than
what the person should expect in their everyday life?  this one is
always hard because i think we have to respect and understand that the
researchers construction of harm and harms is almost certainly not the
same as the subjects.

and finally 'on what basis do i have to force my subjects into my
ethical standpoint?' is it right to impose my ethical standards on
someone who may not share them, or may actively oppose them?  For
instance, is it even right to make someone's work more private than
they actually made it?   In internet research we tend to give deep
privilege to our own moral and ethical standpoints about our subjects.
Should we instead respect their actions and autonomy? at what point is
our ethics merely denying them their own subjectivity? who am i
actually helping here, am I only helping my ethical conscience, the
university and their attorneys, or am I actually supporting the
subject of my research.