[Air-L] Inquiry on screen shots

[Aysenur Ataman]

Dears,

After reading through this amazing and lively discussion - I re-evaluated my ethical understanding of digital self determination rights (rights such as organizing online, freedom of online speech, right of digital privacy, etc) of human beings. Thanks a lot for generating a conversation on “how can I even defend digital rights and report old data?” Seems like we have a consensus on anonymizing users as much as possible when presenting their text. In my research with children’s photos uploaded to Instagram, I made sure I exemplified photos of kids whose face were not visible but reading folks who paraphrased users’ texts, I question whether I should have hired a child actor and paid for a photographer to re-create the photograph or perhaps hire an illustrator to draw the photographs.

Some discussed processing old data as violation of the “right to be forgotten.” Accessing, collecting, analyzing and reporting digital data are different issues that deserve two separate discussions. My personal thought is that analyzing (or re-analyzing) human behavior that was accessed and observed in the past might be okay as long as we comply with ethical rules of storing and de-identifying our data (like natural observation). I consider each post on digital media as a cultural artifact that contributes to cultural narratives. Right to be forgotten sound a bit utopian when we claim human behavior can be erased from our mediated memories as well (referring to van Dijck here). Does right to be forgotten come with a right to modify collective memories? My thoughts are not strong on the issue of analyzing old data and I can be convinced by other thinkers who claim the opposite approach is more ethical.

Best,
Ayşenur

P.S. I hope I didn’t ruin anyone’s inbox peace and violate listserv rules.

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Ayşenur Benevento
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Abdullah Gül University