Some questions to consider:
"In an age of digital media, do we really have any privacy?" (Susan Barnes, “A Privacy Paradox,” 2006)
- How do we delineate between "research" vs. "spying"? Does this change when the project focuses on "big data"? (see Berendt, Büchler, & Rockwell, “Is it Research or is it Spying? Thinking-Through Ethics in Big Data AI and Other Knowledge Sciences,” 2015)
- What forms of "public" data are ethical to use? Or require attribution?
- How might we (intentionally or inadvertently) share data?
For those doing work with big data, recommended reading: Matthew Zook et al., "Ten simple rules for responsible big data research," 2017
Some questions to consider:
"Is an avatar a person?"
"Is one’s digital information [e.g. photos, videos, audio, social media posts] an extension of the self?"
"Can we assume a person is wholly removed from large data pools?" Note: "there is considerable evidence that even ‘anonymised’ datasets that contain enough personal information can result in individuals being identifiable"
"Does the connection between one’s online data and [their] physical person enable psychological, economic, or physical, harm?"
- Your research question
- How we talk about “fixing problems” in communities, cultures and people groups
- Using a deficit-focus vs.an asset-focus for different communities
- the sensitivity of certain topics (for example, illegal activities, immigration status, or abuse)
- Ask: even though this data is available to me, would the people this data comes from want it used this way?
- Is this data representative?
- Algorithms make their own assumptions and may classify people incorrectly (see "Facebook Algorithms and Personal Data")
Let's analyze and discuss a case study.
Review Joshua Tabak and Vivian Zayas's academic article and their summary of it for the New York Times, and discuss:
- What kinds of “human subjects” are involved in this study?
- Is a social media photo of oneself an extension of the self?
- Does their methodology raise any ethical concerns?
Discuss with your table, then share as a group.
Further reading: Patrick Sweeney, "Images of Faces Gleaned from Social Media in Social Psychological Research on Sexual Orientation," 2017