[Air-L] Facebook/Instagram ToS and research

[Ericka Menchen-Trevino]

Hello,
This court case is potentially relevant in the U.S.:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/dc-court-accessing-public-information-not-computer-crime
-Ericka

---
Ericka Menchen-Trevino, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, School of Communication
American University, Washington D.C.
http://www.ericka.cc/
https://www.american.edu/soc/faculty/menchent.cfm

On Wed, May 8, 2019 at 1:01 PM Deen Freelon <dfreelon at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, I wrote about this issue a bit here:
> https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/56f4q
>
> The short answer is: you violate TOS at your own risk. Also, that risk
> is likely to vary based on where you work--e.g. I'm no expert on the
> GDPR, but if I lived in Europe, I'd do my homework on what it says about
> digital research in general and breaking TOS in particular.
>
> Good luck with your research! /DEEN
>
> On 5/8/2019 10:03 AM, Locatelli Elisabetta wrote:
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I resume a topic already discussed in the list some months ago to have a
> help about doing research on Facebook/Instagram contents posted by users
> and platforms’ ToS.
> > After Cambridge Analytica both platforms restricted access to data.
> > Facebook new ToS say “You may not access or collect data from our
> Products using automated means (without our prior permission) or attempt to
> access data you do not have permission to access.” Instagram ToS say “You
> can't attempt to create accounts or access or collect information in
> unauthorized ways. This includes creating accounts or collecting
> information in an automated way without our express permission.”
> >
> > So I was wondering if someone can help or maybe suggest literature about:
> >
> >    *   How much binding are ToS for a researcher?
> >    *   Do these restrictions regard all kind of methodologies?
> >    *   If I obtain the permission from a user to analyse his/her profile
> (i.e. in an ethnographic research project) or I access data that I can
> access with my own profile (i.e. for ethnographic analysis or for an
> analysis of public posts on Instagram), in these cases should I have the
> required permission/authorization or do ToS do refer exclusively to
> platform’s permission/authorization?
> >    *   If a I retrieve data using an app that didn’t pass Facebook
> approval but that it is still working, I suppose these data should not be
> used, but if I decide to use them which kind of consequences may be? Just
> ethical ones or also legal ones?
> >
> > Thank you in advance for your help
> >
> > Best
> >
> > Elisabetta
> >
> >
> >
> > [http://Static.unicatt.it/layout/img/layout/5x1000.gif]
> > Il tuo 5x1000 all’Università Cattolica
> > è molto più di una firma
> >
> > CF 02133120150
> > www.unicatt.it/5permille<http://www.unicatt.it/5permille/>
> >
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> --
> Deen Freelon, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> School of Media and Journalism, UNC-Chapel Hill
> http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> |
> https://github.com/dfreelon
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