[Air-L] Discord data

Wed Dec 18 10:51:30 PST 2024

Dear Anna and Aure,

We have spent a considerable amount of time grappling with these questions in the context of a large-scale qualitative project on meme-based hate that I am currently running.

First, I believe it is important to prioritize ethics as our primary concern, followed by GDPR, and then terms of service. Terms of service may be breached if the overarching (macro) ethical justification is compelling enough.

Secondly, we have argued that platforms should not be viewed strictly as either public or private but should instead be evaluated based on the specific servers in question. We have written a paper that provides this assessment and outlines the circumstances under which we consider a server to be public. You can find the paper here (open access): Intrusiveness and the Public-Private Divide in Netnography. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069241257937.

Regarding GDPR and terms of service, if we were to engage in web scraping, we would likely collect a significant amount of personally identifiable information, as well as more data than necessary. For this reason, I completely agree with Aure's position that we should aim to collect only minimal and highly specific data. Additionally, it is crucial to ensure that any collected data is anonymized and non-personally identifiable in compliance with GDPR.

For data collection, we have been using bespoke software (Manuscrape.org —open source) designed specifically for this purpose as it has an build in editor to remove (blank out) any data you now what to sit with if you make use of screenshots in your ethnography. 

Hope these reflections could be of help to move on in your project. 

Kind regards and happy holidays, 

Jakob Demant
Professor
PhD

University of Copenhagen
Department of Sociology
Øster Farimagsgade 5, Postboks 2099
1014 København K

DIR +45 35 32 15 84
MOB +45 81 74 20 74
jd at soc.ku.dk
http://www.soc.ku.dk/

ManuScrape. Manage your digital ethnographic qualitative projects. ManuScrape.org
Intrusiveness and the Public-private Divide in Netnography. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069241257937
The Gut Feeling of Rational Acting https://doi.org/10.1177/10575677241241072
Drug dealing on Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.12932

How we protect personal data

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> På vegne af Aure Schrock via Air-L
Sendt: 18. december 2024 19:12
Til: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Emne: Re: [Air-L] Discord data

Hi Anna, 

It’s a good question! I have used data from Discord to guide my research on organizing around technology design, culminating in my book Recoding Politics for MIT Press. 

From an ethical perspective, I consider Discord servers to be semi-private. That is, I don't consider the data these communities produce to be “public.” Therefore—and despite the frequently spicy and extremely quotable takes found on these servers—I didn’t quote or otherwise analyze data from Discord servers. However, I used insights gained from Discord-based discussions to guide my research. For example, I could use conversations to locate interview subjects with particular types of knowledge valuable for my research and obtain consent in a traditional fashion at the start of each interview. 

I haven’t had much experience collecting Discord data from a legal perspective, given that I’m now an independent researcher. However, if we understand “scraping” as an automated process, “scraping our services” is a strangely vague phrase. It seems to leave open the possibility for humans to retrieve data in ways that don’t “do harm to Discord” (whatever that means). If I were wording an IRB application, I would not define your data collection method as “scraping” but something else—perhaps "collecting posts from an online message board.” 

Personally, all of this together—the legal and ethical sides of the equation—seems to mean that you could collect data from a Discord server if 1) you did so in a semi-automated, humanistic way (perhaps a laborious cut & paste over time) and 2) obtained the consent of the Discord community you were doing research with, allowing them collectively to consent and each member to opt-out if they so choose. 

But I’m curious, too—how have researchers handled this challenge? 

best
Aure

—
Dr. Aure Schrock (they/he)
Academic Editor and Writing Coach at Indelible Voice <https://www.indeliblevoice.com/>
Personal and Professional Links: bio.site/aure <http://bio.site/aure> 

> On Dec 18, 2024, at 8:42 AM, Anna Gjika via Air-L <air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Has anyone worked with data from Discord? They have the following in 
> their ToS, and I'm curious how folks have dealt with this from a 
> methodological/ ethics review board perspective.
> 
> Thanks,
> Anna
> <Screenshot 2024-12-18 at 7.56.18 
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