[Air-L] Text/Data Mining Software Suggestions: for YouTube, Facebook & Instagram?

Tue Nov 10 10:06:37 PST 2020

Hi all,

there is already some documentation about platforms trying to stifle research. The ones Bernhard mentioned and there were also very informative links in the replies to my request about "Legal challenges for researchers" on this list (28 October). Also note the case of Spotify trying to prevent the publication of the Spotify Teardown book by our colleagues in Sweden (I had no idea that Rolling Stone covered this: https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/spotify-teardown-book-streaming-music-790174/)

I am still looking for examples of GDPR challenges for the kind of research that is represented on this list, and I am still very much interested to what extent universities are supporting researchers in dealing with these issues.

Cheers,
mirko

________________________________
From: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Brooke Criswell via Air-L <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Sent: 10 November 2020 18:35
To: Bernhard Rieder <berno.rieder at gmail.com>
Cc: Air-L at listserv.aoir.org <Air-L at listserv.aoir.org>
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Text/Data Mining Software Suggestions: for YouTube, Facebook & Instagram?

That's wild to me.
Thanks for the discussion, information, and links! Appreciate it all.

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 11:32 AM Bernhard Rieder <berno.rieder at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Brooke,
>
> I am no legal expert myself in any form or function, but here is a case in
> the US that made the rounds some time ago:
> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/web-scraping-doesnt-violate-anti-hacking-law-appeals-court-rules/
>
> This may also get interesting:
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-seeks-shutdown-of-nyu-research-project-into-political-ad-targeting-11603488533?mod=hp_lista_pos1
>
> The problem is that the legal situation is simply not 100% clear, neither
> in the US, nor in Europe.
>
> Best,
> Bernhard
>
> > On 10 Nov 2020, at 17:19, Brooke Criswell <bcriswell at email.fielding.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> > Bernhard,
> >
> > Do you have any of those court cases you could send links to me? I would
> really love to learn more about this subject, especially as an early career
> researcher. And are the laws very different in Europe compared to the US?
> (I am in the US).
> >
> > This is all so interesting to me!
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 11:11 AM Bernhard Rieder <berno.rieder at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi again,
> >
> > No need to apologize, Brooke, we are all in a situation that is marred
> by insecurity, opacity, and conflicting information. My apologies if my
> comments came off too strong, also to Stuart.
> >
> > With regards to Facepager, the tool made it through Facebook's app
> review (Jakob, I'll have to ping you sometime soon to ask how you did it),
> which means that its functionalities were audited by the company, giving
> some legal security. This does of course not eliminate ethical questions.
> >
> > With regards to Instagram, what baffles me is that scraping via
> instaloader actually works better than data retrieval via the API ever did,
> which means that there is some level of acquiescence. One can easily get up
> to 100s of 1000s of posts for a given hashtag.
> >
> > What Mirko is saying about university support is super important, but I
> also want to highlight the great work by AlgorithmWatch and colleagues Jef
> Ausloos, Paddy Leerssen and Pim ten Thije on legal frameworks for more
> robust data access, for example here:
> https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/GoverningPlatforms_IViR_study_June2020-AlgorithmWatch-2020-06-24.pdf
> >
> > This may be naive, but I have the hope that the upcoming EU Digital
> Services Act will have some provisions for academic research, or at least
> some clarifications. The current situation is creating serious chilling
> effects for research, without protecting data subjects from the most
> predatory practices, since scraping works so well (in technical terms) in
> many cases - or not at all in others. Commissioner Vestager has sent some
> positive signals in that direction.
> >
> > The reason why I am very hesitant about taking ToS as legal gospel is a)
> that courts have ruled otherwise when it comes to scraping and b) because I
> find the idea that platform companies can dictate what we are able to know
> about platforms, how they operate and what happens on them highly
> problematic and worth fighting against. Jeanette Hofmann and I have a paper
> on that front coming forth very soon ,-)
> >
> > All the best,
> > Bernhard
> >
> >
> > > On 10 Nov 2020, at 15:53, Brooke Criswell <
> bcriswell at email.fielding.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > My apologies. I was just passing along what I have been told because
> of privacy settings within Facebook and Instagram. I have been told
> specifically by Facebook there is no "legal" way to scrape comments or
> different things like that. Now likes and shares etc, I have no idea. So I
> was just passing that along. I am by no means an expert in all of the ways
> and was not aware of other ways like Facepager. I just know Facebook is
> very strict with their data especially because of the privacy policy and
> settings people can individually make. I have been told Facebook closed off
> their API except for when working in collaborations or specifically
> accepted to get data from their research team.
> > >
> > > Very sorry if I gave wrong information. This is just what I have
> learned and been told and would never want anyone to get into trouble or
> collect items they weren't technically supposed to.
> > >
> > > Best of luck and if you do find anything please share!
> > >
> > > Take care all.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 5:35 AM Bernhard Rieder <berno.rieder at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > Dear colleagues,
> > >
> > > I would like to disagree with Brooke here. Facebook data can still be
> accessed through non-scraping based API-access, most importantly the
> awesome Facepager.
> > >
> > > For Instagram, scraping is indeed the go-to technique (instaloader
> works very well) and I would like to defend the idea that ToS should not
> hinder researchers if the social relevance of the topic warrants it.
> Adhering to corporate policy is not the gold standard for what independent
> research should strive for, in my view. Proposing topics to people at
> Facebook may be a strategy for certain topics, but for anything that does
> not fit within the narrow interests of the platform, this will most likely
> go nowhere.
> > >
> > > For YouTube, you can also check out the YouTube Data Tools that I have
> been maintaining here: https://tools.digitalmethods.net/netvizz/youtube/
> > >
> > > All the best,
> > > Bernhard
> > >
> > >
> > > > On 10 Nov 2020, at 05:22, Brooke Criswell via Air-L <
> air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Facebook and Instagram are strict and according to terms and
> conditions
> > > > they don't allow any data scraping.
> > > >
> > > > Best try is to propose your study to a researcher at Facebook
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, Nov 9, 2020, 2:21 AM Alexandre Leroux <alleroux at ulb.ac.be>
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Facepager for FB and YT it has a user interface and a decent
> documentation.
> > > >>
> > > >> There are scrappers for instagram but those don't comply with the
> > > >> platform terms of use and afaik are terminal only.
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> On 6/11/20 14:59, Cristina Migliaccio wrote:
> > > >>> Dear Colleagues,
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Advance apologies if this question has been addressed (as I am
> certain it
> > > >>> has been) in some previous forum/email---does an easy to use
> text/data
> > > >>> mining software/platform exist that works across these 3 social
> media
> > > >>> platforms: YouTube, Facebook & Instagram?
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I would like to collect data on alphabetic features but also
> > > >> paralinguistic
> > > >>> features such as likes, shares, etc.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Any suggestions whatsoever for a text/data mining beginner would be
> > > >> greatly
> > > >>> appreciated (videos, lectures to this end also appreciated!)
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Warm thanks-
> > > >>> Cristina Migliaccio
> > > >>> _______________________________________________
> > > >>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
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> > > >>>
> > > >>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > > >>> http://www.aoir.org/
> > > >>>
> > > >>
> > > >> --
> > > >> Alexandre Leroux
> > > >> Ph.D candidate
> > > >> Group for research on Ethnic Relations, Migrations and Equality
> (GERME)
> > > >> Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
> > > >> alleroux at ulb.ac.be
> > > >> _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
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