[Air-L] Including screennames with tweets

Sat Jul 14 12:56:11 PDT 2018

Thanks everyone for the discussion on this important issue. I just want to
share my two cents as someone who studies social media in authoritarian
regimes. As you will find, I have concerns and questions, but not a
solution. Yet, the discussion on issues like this, though seem trivial to
some, is essential.

As "social scientists," providing as much as information about the citation
seems to be desirable as that makes our research more transparent and
replicable. However, this is not a good option given the ethical
considerations, especially in terms of preserving the privacy of the our
research subjects, who often "participate" in our research involuntarily in
that we cannot obtain their permission before citing them as some
colleagues have pointed out here. The problem is even worse for those who
do research in more constrained environment because (1) data availability
is often a bigger challenge; (2) those who we cite may face more serious
repercussions if their identity is revealed. I have generally tried to
anonymize whoever I quote or cite when the issue at discussion is
considered controversial or politically sensitive. I say "tried" because
first, it is impossible to really anonymize the source if we actually quote
or cite someone whose statement is publicly available, and second, the
journals, book publishers, and the disciplines in general often require us
to at least provide some "identifying information" such as the URL links.
In this regard, my effort might be in vain. However, I still try every time
whenever possible because of the very simple logic--we need to protect our
subjects.

In a sense, people like me are challenging the established norms of
academic research that emphasize the scientific aspect of the process. But
I feel we are obliged to do what we do. After all, even though a particular
statement is there and the social media user put it up voluntarily and does
not mind if people or even the government reads out it, the very fact that
we include it in an academic paper/book (not to say our interpretation and
analysis of it) may change everything. We are singling it out and
highlighting it, thus can potentially catch the attention from the state or
other suppressive or bullying forces. That's why I constantly worry that we
are not doing enough to project who we study.

Thanks to everyone again and I appreciate your input.

Rongbin Han
Assistant Professor
Department of International Affairs
University of Georgia
Contesting Cyberspace in China
<https://cup.columbia.edu/book/contesting-cyberspace-in-china/9780231184755>
(Columbia University Press)

On Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 12:59 PM, Unger, Johann <j.unger at lancaster.ac.uk>
wrote:

> Just wanted to add my appreciation for this discussion! The distinctions
> and deliberations that are emerging are very much in tune with my recent
> experience of helping my PhD students negotiate their ethics applications.
>
> One thing I don’t think anyone has mentioned (unless I have missed it) in
> this discussion is the possibility of including links to tweets, rather
> than the original text of the tweets, in publications. This means that as
> long as the users responsible for the tweets in question have not deleted
> them, they are available in full to readers of the publication, but they
> are not made “more permanent” by their inclusion in a new context. This may
> help solve some of the problems that we have heard about in this
> discussion, though it is of course not without its own problems (e.g.
> people changing their names over time could have an impact on analyses
> where names carry information value).
>
> I hasten to add that this is not my idea - unfortunatlely I can’t remember
> where I first read about this practice.
>
> Best, Johnny
>
> Dr J W Unger
> Lecturer and Academic Director of Summer Programmes
> Department of Linguistics and English Language
> Lancaster University
> LA1 4YL
>
> e-mail: j.unger at lancaster.ac.uk<mailto:j.unger at lancaster.ac.uk>
> tel: +44 1524 592591<tel:+44%201524%20592591>
> Follow me on Twitter @johnnyunger<http://twitter.com/#!/johnnyunger>
> On 14 Jul 2018, 00:20 +0100, Бодрунова Светлана Сергеевна <
> s.bodrunova at spbu.ru>, wrote:
> Dear all, dear Rebecca,
> thanks for raising this issue - the trend seems to be not to include
> the screennames into publications. But I have a couple of thoughts on
> this as a researcher who has dealt with influencers on Twitter in
> cross-country perspective.
>
> 1. The dubious status of a tweet as 'oral-written' seems to lie at the
> bottom of your hesitations. If you treat tweets as oral statements
> produced in private, you will need authors' consent to publish AND a
> reference to the source. If you treat them as published documents, you
> will only need a reference to the source.
> But at the same time, be it oral or written, you need to protect the
> source from potential harm - this comes not only from judicial but
> also from journalistic practice. Hence, evaluation (public interest
> against potential harm) is needed in each individual case. The
> scholarly community, just as the journalistic community 50 years
> before that, might wish to elaborate a sort of a list of potentially
> harmful cases or recommendations on how to evaluate this.
>
> Some additional comments that also come from journalistic practice:
>
> 1. There is research where accounts of public persons and institutions
> are under scrutiny. E.g. see the works on whether people address
> police or civil servants on Twitter in times of crises or natural
> disasters. Here, research loses its sense if the names are not stated.
> Here, public interest might definitely be higher than potential harm.
>
> In journalism, public people may be photographed when killed (see the
> case of Uwe Barshel in Germany, an old but highly exemplary one),
> chased for cheating on their spouses, asked harsh quetions, etc. They
> need to be ready to get under public attention and scholarly analysis.
> But, again, the scholarly community needs to find ways to define
> public figures on Twitter and maybe treat them different than
> 'ordinary people'. Or, are all the accounts now 'public figures'? Or,
> are all the accounts now private (and what to do then with the curated
> accounts of politicians and brands)?
>
> 2. What is identifying a user? Is it providing the screenname, or ID,
> or claiming we know the real name? For most of us, there is no chance
> to prove that a particular account is really an account by a
> particular offline person; we're only suggesting that. Formally, we
> can only state that this or that account is called this way and tells
> this or that publicly. But even this can lead to potential harm to a
> given user, as naming an account / screenname in research (say, on
> anorexia, hate speech, radical nationalism etc.) can lead to
> cyberbullying and virtual attacks. Thus, not only the necessity should
> be weighted; but also the community needs to develop least harmful
> ways of identifying the sources of tweets.
>
> Sorry if my considerations are banal :)
>
> Yours,
> Svetlana
>
>
>
> On Fri, 13 Jul 2018 06:23:14 +0000
> "Hayes, Rebecca M" <hayes2r at cmich.edu> wrote:
> Dear All,
> Can you please weigh in on the decision to include or not include
> screennames
> when we cite tweets in a book? The book is on new media and crime,
> and we are using tweets in a few places as examples of some
> different discussions.
>
> We are back and forth on whether we should include the screennames
> and at others or disclude them. The arguments we have seen thus far,
> are to include them because it was made public and we are citing
> someones words. The other argument is to disclude them
> as the person did not consent to have it printed in that way persay,
> and the screenname attached in our book could be used to find and
> harass the person. What are your thoughts?
>
> Thank you,
> Becky
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> --
> Svetlana S. Bodrunova, Prof., D.Polit.Sci.
> Head, Center for International Media Research
> School of Journalism and Mass Communications,
> St.Petersburg State University
>
> +7 921 933 02 14<tel:+7%20921%20933%2002%2014>
> spasibo-tebe at yandex.ru
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