Is using Twitter data ethical?
Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2025 8:47 am
Joseph AllenIn this five-part mini series, Joe Allen gets us thinking about the challenges and ethical implications of using Twitter data.
This is part three of a five-part series on the ease and ethics of utilising Twitter data, based on a talk I gave at the NCRM Research Methods e-Festival. In the last post, I explored the access industry has to Twitter data and the ethics of this access.
In my view, Twitter data is personal data, and belarus rcs data so any use of it should be subject to ethical review. Twitter as a company does not take responsibility for policing the ethics of Twitter data use, so in this post, I take a look at the ethical review process in UK academia and how it could help improve procedures for the ethical use of Twitter data.
A smartphone with the Twitter logo onscreen, lying on a cardboard box with the words 'Handle with care' on it.
Photo by Ravi Sharma on Unsplash
When Twitter data is used in academic research, should we inform each user that their data is collected?
In a traditional academic study involving personal data, we know that standard scholarly practice involves seeking informed consent from participants. We also give these users the right to revoke their data at any time.
However, when dealing with Twitter data, things are a lot more complicated. For one thing, the sheer volume of tweets that exist on the internet provides a baseline of anonymity. Without contacting all of these users, academic researchers cannot offer them the chance to give informed consent for their data to be used. Moreover, there’s a general consensus that users shouldn’t be contacted in this way, as shown in the Mentimeter responses from my audience below.
This is part three of a five-part series on the ease and ethics of utilising Twitter data, based on a talk I gave at the NCRM Research Methods e-Festival. In the last post, I explored the access industry has to Twitter data and the ethics of this access.
In my view, Twitter data is personal data, and belarus rcs data so any use of it should be subject to ethical review. Twitter as a company does not take responsibility for policing the ethics of Twitter data use, so in this post, I take a look at the ethical review process in UK academia and how it could help improve procedures for the ethical use of Twitter data.
A smartphone with the Twitter logo onscreen, lying on a cardboard box with the words 'Handle with care' on it.
Photo by Ravi Sharma on Unsplash
When Twitter data is used in academic research, should we inform each user that their data is collected?
In a traditional academic study involving personal data, we know that standard scholarly practice involves seeking informed consent from participants. We also give these users the right to revoke their data at any time.
However, when dealing with Twitter data, things are a lot more complicated. For one thing, the sheer volume of tweets that exist on the internet provides a baseline of anonymity. Without contacting all of these users, academic researchers cannot offer them the chance to give informed consent for their data to be used. Moreover, there’s a general consensus that users shouldn’t be contacted in this way, as shown in the Mentimeter responses from my audience below.