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Debating the Ethics of Social Media Research

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Codes of conduct for survey research have evolved over the last 65 years into a broad consensus. This consensus emerged because of the need to restrict behavior that is harmful to the long-term health of the profession, such as sugging and frugging, among many other activities. No such consensus exists yet for social media market research.

Some of the disagreements:

• Cite/obscure identities of commenters.
• "I would take all the comments I wanted (maybe change word order a bit) and then apply usual criteria to hide contact info. I also think sourcing formats are appropriate - I would offer several categories of sources - blog, chat, online bulletin board, but not exact addresses. I would offer categories of participants - mom, aged 30 - 35 or architect from Illinois. Enough to provide context, but not so much the client can identify exact source." - Kathy Flament, president of Flament Associates, in a LinkedIn discussion
• "I would say that you should quote anything taken from a blog verbatim and attribute it. Reading content of blogs is desk research amongst publicly published material, not primary research. To mask its source and treat it as if it was from a 'live respondent' would, in my view, be a king of plagiarism of the original author and to some degree dishonest to any client reading it." - Audrey Anand, owner, Listengroup, ibid.
• Seek/don't seek permission.
• "I always ask for the permit from the blogger which blog I'm using. It's useful and only once or twice I was asked not to use data. Sometimes blogger ask of me not to reveal their identity or data source and sometimes they insist for their name or blog address to be stated." - Mirjana Necak, PR manager, ibid.
• "Would it ever be possible to really get informed consent without affecting the quality of the learning, especially if you're asking over the net? How would you practically go about getting informed consent - approach every member, from the site moderator or would it be enough to simply announce in your profile that you are a market researcher? I think that this is an area that has to be viewed by a case by case basis, until the industry has amassed enough examples to be able to credibly draw up definitive guidelines." - Letesia Gibson, founder of State of Play, writing in a blog post Ethics in online research
• Engage/don't engage with commenters.
• The online persona does not always reflect the offline persona; remember the bloggers' potential motivations and concerns about privacy and security. Bloggers merit a reciprocal relationship. When using blogs as research data, recognize the impact of the audience and interaction on what the blogger is sharing. Engage by acquiring bloggers as sample, eavesdrop to analyze online statements, and connect in order to understand context of what is being shared, meeting bloggers half way; only then can we authenticate the opinions being shared online. - my paraphrase of Josephine Hansom, a social researcher with GfK NOP, presenting Bloggers as Research Partners
• "In the course of carrying out social media research, someone takes the step of replying to someone whose data just happens to appears in the research data set. The person didn't ask to participate and they didn't respond to a question. For me, this is in direct violation of the Prime Directive. Sure, the internet is open. Sure, the links and names are readily available to everyone. But that doesn't make it right. People need to be able to express their honest opinions without worrying that some big company is going to try to change their opinions." - Annie Pettit, CRO, Conversition, in a blog post on "Rugging"
• Respect/ignore perceptions of privacy.
• April 6 Twitter thread from Annie Pettit:
• Ethics debate! Are researchers allowed to interact with social media contributors? I INSIST no. #mr
• I see it as a lack of opt-in, a breach of personal space, and a forceful imposition. #mr
• As an individual, who likes opt-out processes? (E.g., you get charged $ unless you call someone and say no)
• My online is my personal space. I can complain all I want and you should keep out. (Not you right now :)
• My internet is relatively private though viewable by all.
• "‘Private internet' is a dangerous misconception. We'll spend the next decade sorting out ethics, policies. Prolly longer." - Carolyn Snyder, usability consultant, on Twitter

Clearly, there is much to talk about if we are to build a consensus on ethical practices for market research using social media. Ray Poynter has assembled eight ethical guidelines for blog and buzz mining as a start.

Please chime in with your own issues below!