Curtis Jessop is a Senior
Researcher at NatCen Social Research and is the Network Lead for the NSMNSS
network
I’m playing catch-up a little bit here,
but thought I’d share some thoughts on a presentation from Professor
Woodrow Hartzog (slides here) at an ethics
symposium I attended on 19th July hosted by the Web
Science Institute.
The presentation focussed on the ethics
of how our data are collected online, arguing that insufficient attention is
paid to the design of information
technology. Giving a number of examples of how IT had failed ethically at a
design stage, Professor Hartzog challenged the idea that ‘there are no bad
technologies, only bad users’, asserting that there is no such thing as neutral
design.
Following this thought, he suggested
that the principle of giving users control (e.g. over privacy settings) does
not reflect how people actually use technology and can be overwhelming
(managing all settings for all accounts), or even manipulated to
disguise/protect true intentions. This principle puts too much onus on the
user, when the responsibility should lie with the designers.
I think this is an under-considered area
in ethics of social media research. When we think about ‘data collection’, we are
more likely to think about how we get the data out of its original context, but
there is of course a stage before that: when the data was collected by the
original platform. As researchers we are unlikely to have control over the
design of our ‘data source’, but to what extent should we be considering it?
My second thought was that a lot of
these principles translate over to research ethics – the design of a methodology is not neutral, and giving research
participants control is not necessarily sufficient (or appropriate). As
researchers the onus should be on us to ensure the design is ethically sound
and protects the participant’s interests.
Overall, this event felt to me more
rooted in data science than social science; in the advance materials I received
for this event, it was suggested that ‘Principles
of informed consent and anonymity in this environment are no longer the answer’
and I can’t say I’m convinced of that. However, given the often necessarily
inter-disciplinary nature of social media research, it is important that these
perspectives are included and this did give me plenty to think about.
I should also say that the second keynote
given by Professor Mireille Hildebrandt (slides here) which
looked at the ethics of data-sharing through philosophical and legal lenses was
excellent, as was the panel discussion in between. For more information on the
event, have a look here, and
there are a couple of other blogs from the event here and here.
