[Air-L] About social media data availability

Fri Dec 9 21:00:15 PST 2022

Thank you very much for your in depth answers.
We rejected the reviewer suggestion and our article has been accepted for publication. 
Xanat V. Meza

Ph.D. Kansei, Behavioral and Brain SciencesUniversity of Tsukuba
M.A. Media and Communication
Yeungnam University
B.D. Graphic Communication Design
Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana

    El viernes, 18 de noviembre de 2022, 11:50:03 p. m. GMT+9, Libby Hemphill <libbyh at umich.edu> escribió:  

 Hi,
If you're looking for a way to share social media data with additional privacy and confidentiality protections, please reach out to us at the Social Media Archive at ICPSR (somar-help at umich.edu). For sensitive data like you mention, we use a "restricted use" model that includes a strong data use agreement. a virtual data enclave, and manual disclosure risk review. This ensures that data is available for replication and extension but with protections for folks represented in the data. 
You can learn more about how ICPSR approaches confidentiality here: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/datamanagement/confidentiality/index.html
You can sign up for updates about SOMAR here: https://www.socialmediaarchive.org/
Given the terms under which you collected the data (the understanding you and the admins shared), this data may require additional constraints on its use (e.g., replication only maybe, much like if you had explicit informed consent for a specific research question but not others). We'd be happy to talk to you about options.

We are currently testing our infrastructure and curating data for release. We expect to officially launch the archive in early 2023.
Take care,Libby
--Libby Hemphillpronouns: she/her/hersDirector, Resource Center for Minority Data, ICPSRDirector, Social Media Archive, ICPSRAssociate Director, Center for Social Media ResponsibilityResearch Associate Professor, Institute for Social ResearchAssociate Professor, School of Information
University of Michigan
On Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 10:54 PM Luke Munn via Air-L <air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

Marcela is correct to highlight the dangers of re-identification. You're
probably thinking of Latanya Sweeney's work in this space, which has been
around for a couple decades and has been highly cited.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/04/25/harvard-professor-re-identifies-anonymous-volunteers-in-dna-study/?sh=e0e614592c9b

https://dataprivacylab.org/projects/identifiability/paper1.pdf

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1142/S0218488502001648

ngā mihi / best,
Luke

On Fri, 18 Nov 2022 at 12:43, Marcela Canavarro via Air-L <
air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> Modern data protection laws rule that anonimyzed data is when the person is
> not identified OR identifiable. You can say that, given available means
> today, you cannot guarantee that the individuals cannot be identifiable
> through data inference.
>
> Check out GDPR - the European Data Protection law - and LGPD - the
> Brazilian one. They both define anonymized data in that way.  It is also a
> good idea to check how the californian data protection act treat this
> topic.
>
> Also, there is a famous study where a huge anonymized data set was openly
> available and it took just a few hours for many people to be identified
> through data inference.  It might be a nice context for your argument.
>
> I hope that helps.
>
> Marcela.
>
>
>
> Em quinta-feira, 17 de novembro de 2022, Dr. Emma Briant via Air-L <
> air-l at listserv.aoir.org> escreveu:
>
> > Hi there,
> > It sounds a very reasonable concern. I would just explain this in a
> written
> > response to that point in the reviewer’s comments. You don’t necessarily
> > need to do everything each reviewer says, you just need to address their
> > concern, show you’ve considered it and explain why you chose to do what
> you
> > did, that you have good reason for taking this approach.
> > Best of luck,
> > Emma
> >
> > On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 at 20:17, Xanat Meza via Air-L <
> > air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello everyone!
> > > I have a situation with some social media data we collected for a paper
> > > that is currently under revision.
> > > The situation is complex because we collected this data from a Facebook
> > > group dedicated to a rare medical condition back in 2017, when social
> > media
> > > data rules were not as strict as they are now. When we requested ethics
> > > review from our institution, they even told us we did not have to do
> > > anything in particular and got the study approval without much
> > difficulty.
> > > Therefore, we requested permission to the group administrators to
> collect
> > > posts, posted a permission request for the group members, asking them
> to
> > > send us a message if they wished to opt out from the study, and
> collected
> > > one thousand posts by hand. We noted that there were many researchers
> in
> > > this group and that the members participated in surveys and medical
> > studies
> > > frequently and with enthusiasm, so we thought at that time that an
> > > opting-out format would be enough. The data basically consists on user
> > > name, the texts in the posts, date and time of the posts, number of
> > > replies, and reactions. We separated the user names and replaced them
> > with
> > > alphanumeric codes.
> > > Now, a reviewer of our paper is insisting that we MUST share this data
> > > openly because it is anonymized. However, we think that it should be
> > > available upon request, as social media data management has become
> > stricter
> > > in recent years, particularly on the case of data from vulnerable
> > > communities. If we place this data related to a rare medical condition
> in
> > > an open repository, even people who are not researchers may have access
> > to
> > > it and use it to bully this Facebook group, even if in theory, they
> could
> > > not target specific users.
> > > Does anyone have any ideas or advise on how we can respond politely to
> > > this reviewer that it is safer for everyone to keep the data available
> > upon
> > > request?
> > > Xanat V. Meza
> > >
> > > Ph.D. Kansei, Behavioral and Brain SciencesUniversity of Tsukuba
> > > M.A. Media and Communication
> > > Yeungnam University
> > > B.D. Graphic Communication Design
> > > Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> > >
> > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > > http://www.aoir.org/
> > >
> > --
> > Dr Emma L Briant
> >
> > Owner: Maven of Persuasion LLC
> > Fellow at Central European University's Center for Media, Data and
> Society
> > Associate at University of Cambridge, Center for Financial Reporting &
> > Accountability
> > Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emmalbriant
> > Website: www.emma-briant.co.uk
> >
> > Author of: *Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global
> > Change *from
> > Manchester University Press
> > Co-Author of: *Bad News for Refugees* with Prof. Greg Philo and Dr.
> Pauline
> > Donald from Pluto Press.
> > Sign up for my Newsletter
> > <http://emma-briant.co.uk/sign-up-for-important-updates/>!
> > Follow me on Twitter @emmalbriant
> >
> > "I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it
> turns
> > out today is." - Steve Martin
> > _______________________________________________
> > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/
> > listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> >
> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > http://www.aoir.org/
> >
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
>
_______________________________________________
The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
http://www.aoir.org/