#MeToo Online Disclosures: A Survivor-Informed Approach to Open Science Practices and Ethical Use of Social Media Data

2021 ◽  
pp. 036168432110391
Author(s):  
Erin O’Callaghan ◽  
Hannah M. Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Sensitive Information ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Data Ethics ◽  
Media Data ◽  
Review Boards

With social media data widely available, researchers are increasingly incorporating tweets, posts, and blogs in their work. While easily accessible, the use of “public” posts raises important questions about the ethics of mining, storing, analyzing, and reporting publicly available social media data—especially when gathering sensitive information such as sexual violence disclosures. Online movements including #MeToo and #WhyIDidntReport emerged to shed light on gender-based violence. These movements generate large quantities of data with little consistency and oversight across research groups, disciplines, and review boards on data ethics. With the recent push in social science to publish data to open science databases, the concerns of feminist psychologists and ethical concerns of social media research with survivors have become more salient. In this article, we describe and address these ethical issues by reviewing existing social media sexual assault disclosure research and make concrete recommendations for authors seeking to use social media data. We also seek to address these ethical concerns by noting the work of some feminist researchers, but also by pushing researchers to do more for survivors through a survivor-informed approach to this research in an open science context. We propose four survivor-informed recommendations for research with this vulnerable population: (a) get input from survivors, (b) update ethics review boards, (c) maximize benefits to participants, and (d) utilize study-appropriate datasets with informed consent.

Determining factors of participants' attitudes toward the ethics of social media data research

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Chen ◽  
Chuanfu Chen ◽  
Si Li
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Research Subjects ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Determining Factors ◽  
Media Data

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the participants' attitudes toward the ethical issues caused by collecting social media data (SMD) for research, as well as the effects of familiarity, trust and altruism on the participants' attitudes toward the ethics of SMD research. It is hoped that through this study, scholars will be reminded to respect participants and engage in ethical reflection when using SMD in research.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted social media users as its research subjects and used Sina Microblog, the world's largest Chinese social media platform, as the example. Based on the 320 valid responses collected from a survey, structural equation modeling was employed to examine the research model.FindingsThe results indicated that altruism, familiarity and trust have significant influences on participants' attitudes toward the ethics of SMD research, and familiarity also influences attitudes through the mediating role of trust and altruism.Originality/valueThis study explored the mechanism underlying the relationship between the determining factors and participants' attitudes toward the ethics of SMD research, and the results demonstrated that the informed consent mechanism is an effective way to communicate with participants and that the guiding responsibility of the platform should be improved to standardize SMD research.

scholarly journals Comprehensive scoping review of health research using social media data

BMJ Open ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. e022931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Taylor ◽  
Claudia Pagliari
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Health Related Research ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Google Search ◽  
Media Data

IntroductionThe rising popularity of social media, since their inception around 20 years ago, has been echoed in the growth of health-related research using data derived from them. This has created a demand for literature reviews to synthesise this emerging evidence base and inform future activities. Existing reviews tend to be narrow in scope, with limited consideration of the different types of data, analytical methods and ethical issues involved. There has also been a tendency for research to be siloed within different academic communities (eg, computer science, public health), hindering knowledge translation. To address these limitations, we will undertake a comprehensive scoping review, to systematically capture the broad corpus of published, health-related research based on social media data. Here, we present the review protocol and the pilot analyses used to inform it.MethodsA version of Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage scoping review framework will be followed: (1) identifying the research question; (2) identifying the relevant literature; (3) selecting the studies; (4) charting the data and (5) collating, summarising and reporting the results. To inform the search strategy, we developed an inclusive list of keyword combinations related to social media, health and relevant methodologies. The frequency and variability of terms were charted over time and cross referenced with significant events, such as the advent of Twitter. Five leading health, informatics, business and cross-disciplinary databases will be searched: PubMed, Scopus, Association of Computer Machinery, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, alongside the Google search engine. There will be no restriction by date.Ethics and disseminationThe review focuses on published research in the public domain therefore no ethics approval is required. The completed review will be submitted for publication to a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary open access journal, and conferences on public health and digital research.

Social Media to Social Media Analytics

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vikas Kumar ◽  
Pooja Nanda
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Media Analytics ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Media Data

With the amplification of social media platforms, the importance of social media analytics has exponentially increased for many brands and organizations across the world. Tracking and analyzing the social media data has been contributing as a success parameter for such organizations, however, the data is being poorly harnessed. Therefore, the ethical implications of social media analytics need to be identified and explored for both the organizations and targeted users of social media data. The present work is an exploratory study to identify the various techno-ethical concerns of social media engagement, as well as social media analytics. The impact of these concerns on the individuals, organizations, and society as a whole are discussed. Ethical engagement for the most common social media platforms has been outlined with a number of specific examples to understand the prominent techno-ethical concerns. Both the individual and organizational perspectives have been taken into account to identify the implications of social media analytics.

scholarly journals The use of biblical themes in the debate concerning the xenophobic attacks in South Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zorodzai Dube
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
The Social ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Media Data ◽  
Economic Outlook

The study draws from the ideas of J�rgen Habermas, Daniel Trotter and Christian Fuchs, Zizi Papacharissis, Yochai Benkler and Christian Fuchs to investigate the use of social media as a platform to express ideas against xenophobic-related attacks in South Africa (April 2015�May 2015). The data was collected from twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Most views came from the Facebook platform called �Stop xenophobia�. Using ATLAS.ti, software for qualitative research, the data was coded into interpretive variables or categories. The results show that themes such as hospitality, morality, creation and ethics received highest frequency as reasons to condemn xenophobia. The research further reveals that the social media data is much candid in comparison to state controlled media, where views and ideas were censored to protect the economic and public image of the country. Unlike the controlled government outlets which focus on the possible correlation between xenophobic attacks to economic outlook, the social media focuses on moral and ethical issues � issues that define our collective as human beings and tackles xenophobia from the perspective of ethics and shared human values.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This study is interdisciplinary in nature due to the use of theories in media studies and social sciences to investigate the use of biblical themes in the fight against xenophobia.

scholarly journals Fake News Case Study during the Australian 2019 General Election

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Warren
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
General Election ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Research Perspective ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Media Data

Social media is used by all aspects of society from citizens to businesses, but it also now used by political parties. Political parties use social media to engage with voters as a method of attract new voters or reinforcing the views of political parties’ current supporters. An important consideration is the ethical conduct of political parties and politicians in how they use social media. It is now recognized that social media can also have negative aspects seen by the introduction of Fake News. These negative aspects of social media are often overlooked and have not been explored from a research perspective. This paper looks at the Australian 2019 General Election and discusses a major Fake News example that occurred during that election. The paper will also describe the different types of social media data was collected during the study and also present the analysis of the data collected as well discussing the research findings including the ethical issues.

scholarly journals Digital Trespass: Ethical and Terms-of-Use Violations by Researchers Accessing Data From an Online Patient Community (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil Chiauzzi ◽  
Paul Wicks
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Informed Consent ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Media Ethics ◽  
Computer Data ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Social Media Research ◽  
Media Data ◽  
Review Boards

UNSTRUCTURED With the expansion and popularity of research on websites such as Facebook and Twitter, there has been increasing concern about investigator conduct and social media ethics. The availability of large data sets has attracted researchers who are not traditionally associated with health data and its associated ethical considerations, such as computer and data scientists. Reliance on oversight by ethics review boards is inadequate and, due to the public availability of social media data, there is often confusion between public and private spaces. In addition, social media participants and researchers may pay little attention to traditional terms of use. In this paper, we review four cases involving ethical and terms-of-use violations by researchers seeking to conduct social media studies in an online patient research network. These violations involved unauthorized scraping of social media data, entry of false information, misrepresentation of researcher identities of participants on forums, lack of ethical approval and informed consent, use of member quotations, and presentation of findings at conferences and in journals without verifying accurate potential biases and limitations of the data. The correction of these ethical lapses often involves much effort in detecting and responding to violators, addressing these lapses with members of an online community, and correcting inaccuracies in the literature (including retraction of publications and conference presentations). Despite these corrective actions, we do not regard these episodes solely as violations. Instead, they represent broader ethical issues that may arise from potential sources of confusion, misinformation, inadequacies in applying traditional informed consent procedures to social media research, and differences in ethics training and scientific methodology across research disciplines. Social media research stakeholders need to assure participants that their studies will not compromise anonymity or lead to harmful outcomes while preserving the societal value of their health-related studies. Based on our experience and published recommendations by social media researchers, we offer potential directions for future prevention-oriented measures that can be applied by data producers, computer/data scientists, institutional review boards, research ethics committees, and publishers.

scholarly journals The Science of Open (Communication) Science: Toward an Evidence-Driven Understanding of Quality Criteria in Communication Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Freiling ◽  
Nicole M Krause ◽  
Dietram A Scheufele ◽  
Kaiping Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Open Communication ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Media Data

Abstract Paralleling very visible debates in psychology, some parts of the communication field have recently pushed for a wholesale endorsement of the principles of open science and its practices, including a particular focus on replicability and reproducibility as quality criteria. Unfortunately, these discussions have been plagued by a set of at least 3 interrelated problems: A lack of conceptual clarity when defining open science-related challenges to communication scholarship; the irony of using intuition rather than evidence when trying to improve communication science; and our field’s surprising lack of attention to nonreplicability in social media data as one of our field’s most rapidly growing data sources. In response to these problem areas, we argue that communication as a field proceed empirically as it applies open science practices to different subfields in communication and end our essay with pathways forward for a science of open (communication) science.

scholarly journals Social Media Data Misuse

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tariq Soussan ◽  
Marcello Trovati
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Modern Method ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Innovative Enterprise ◽  
Media Data

The present high-tech landscape has allowed institutes to undergo digital transformation in addition to the storing of exceptional bulks of information from several resources, such as mobile phones, debit cards, GPS, transactions, online logs, and e-records. With the growth of technology, big data has grown to be a huge resource for several corporations that helped in encouraging enhanced strategies and innovative enterprise prospects. This advancement has also offered the expansion of linkable data resources. One of the famous data sources is social media platforms. Ideas and different types of content are being posted by thousands of people via social networking sites. These sites have provided a modern method for operating companies efficiently. However, some studies showed that social media platforms can be a source for misinformation at which some users tend to misuse social media data. In this work, the ethical concerns and conduct in online communities has been reviewed in order to see how social media data from different platforms has been misused, and to highlight some of the ways to avoid the misuse of social media data.

Social Media Data Misuse

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tariq Soussan ◽  
Marcello Trovati
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Modern Method ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Innovative Enterprise ◽  
Media Data

The present high-tech landscape has allowed institutes to undergo digital transformation in addition to the storing of exceptional bulks of information from several resources, such as mobile phones, debit cards, GPS, transactions, online logs, and e-records. With the growth of technology, big data has grown to be a huge resource for several corporations that helped in encouraging enhanced strategies and innovative enterprise prospects. This advancement has also offered the expansion of linkable data resources. One of the famous data sources is social media platforms. Ideas and different types of content are being posted by thousands of people via social networking sites. These sites have provided a modern method for operating companies efficiently. However, some studies showed that social media platforms can be a source for misinformation at which some users tend to misuse social media data. In this work, the ethical concerns and conduct in online communities has been reviewed in order to see how social media data from different platforms has been misused, and to highlight some of the ways to avoid the misuse of social media data.

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