Study Guide: Social Media Analytics & AI - Module 2

Yo, what it is! You know what it is, it’s your man Kingmusa— and welcome to The Study Guide! Today, we delve into Social Media Analytics & AI, particularly Module 2: Ethical Considerations in Social Media Research. We’ll discuss conducting social media research ethically and legally, emphasizing that it goes beyond mere collection of likes and shares.

Key Concept of the Day:

Today, we explore the ethical and legal aspects of social media research. We’ll understand research principles, ethics, and terminology, which are crucial for social media analytics. Social media has become integral to modern communication, shaping how we connect, share ideas, and consume content. Social media platforms generate vast amounts of data from user interactions, offering opportunities for research and analysis. Analyzing social media data provides insights into user behavior, preferences, and decision-making patterns.

Researchers face challenges related to the volume, variety, and velocity of social media data, making human processing impossible without computational tools. Analyzing social media data involves text, images, videos, audio, emojis, hashtags, geolocation, and more. Researchers must ensure data quality and protect user privacy and data security.

Let’s get right to it. Today, we’re unpacking the ethical landscape of conducting research using social media data. Conducting research ethically and legally ensures we respect individuals’ rights, maintain their privacy, and produce trustworthy findings. Ignoring these aspects can have serious consequences.

Here are the main points:

• Research Paradigms & Ethical Conduct: We approach research through different lenses.
• Quantitative Social Science analyzes data to find patterns. Interpretivism focuses on individual perspectives. Criticism examines power structures and inequalities. In social media research, ethical conduct involves prioritizing user privacy, transparency, and informed consent.
• Key Legal Frameworks:
• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation): Controls data in Europe and applies to companies worldwide processing EU residents’ data.
• CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act): Provides data privacy rights to California residents.
• COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act): Protects children under 13’s online privacy in the US.
• The Research Process & Paradigms:
• Social media interactions offer insights into human behavior.
• Social media research uses theory, data collection, and analysis to understand its impact.
• The scientific method helps researchers understand social phenomena.
• Social regularities, like women disclosing more personal information on Instagram, can be identified.
• The research process involves defining problems, asking questions, and collecting data to test predictions.
• Social media analytics gathers data from various platforms.
•  Research paradigms guide our approach.
• Positivism emphasizes objective truths, interpretivism focuses on personal experiences and meaning, and critical theory examines systemic issues and power imbalances. Postmodernism acknowledges the diverse nature of social media behavior. Choosing the right methodology is crucial, aligning with the research question and paradigm.
• Ethical and legal challenges in social media research include privacy concerns, legal compliance, and ethical conduct. Sentiment analysis quantifies public opinion, but the Cambridge Analytica scandal highlighted data ownership and privacy issues. Users often agree to terms without understanding them, potentially leading to data misuse. Researchers face ethical dilemmas in collecting data without consent, emphasizing privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent. Ensuring user anonymity is challenging due to traceability. Special care must be taken when studying vulnerable populations and minimizing harm. Fair use allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission, considering factors like purpose, nature of work, amount used, and market impact. While the US lacks a comprehensive federal privacy law, laws like GDPR, CCPA, and COPPA offer some protection. Researchers must adhere to privacy laws globally when collecting data from individuals protected by those laws. Understanding research ethics and privacy laws is essential before conducting any research.
• Researchers A and B studied personality traits and online self-disclosure using different methods.
• Researcher A (Quantitative) used statistical methods on a large sample to find relationships between variables, emphasizing objectivity, observation, measurement, and deductive reasoning. The goals are prediction and control, with values of objectivity, precision, power, and parsimony. Researcher B (Qualitative) conducted in-depth interviews to understand individual experiences using an interpretive paradigm, recognizing the uniqueness of human experience and the researcher’s role in inductive reasoning. Critical Scholarship critically examines societal norms and power dynamics, especially concerning marginalized groups, aiming to reveal ideological biases and power relations for social change. Research here is driven by values and assumptions about knowledge, often using deductive reasoning. Standpoint theory suggests a researcher’s background can influence findings. The module presents various scenarios highlighting privacy, ownership, and legal scenarios.
• Lack of privacy on social media, ethical concerns about content use, legal implications of unauthorized content use, questions about content ownership and privacy expectations, ethical dilemmas in social media research, legal boundaries and data harvesting practices, the value of data as a data broker, how big data enables targeted advertising, user awareness of data collection, the importance of understanding Terms of Service and Privacy Policies, user concerns about online privacy and data control, the original poster’s ownership rights and copyright infringement action, licenses granted to social media platforms through TOS, the Fair Use Doctrine and its limitations, global privacy laws and ethical considerations.
• The US has limited federal privacy laws, with COPPA (1998) being the oldest. Some states have their own laws. The European Union’s GDPR is a comprehensive law globally applying to companies processing EU residents’ data, with penalties for non-compliance. It emphasizes legal, fair, and transparent practices, data minimization, security, and individual control. Research under GDPR requires specific rules and user informed consent. National security concerns can lead to actions like the US government’s ban on TikTok on company devices. Ethical considerations like privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent are crucial in social media research. Government-funded research must adhere to Institutional Review Board (IRB) rules, which review research for ethical concerns, especially regarding sensitive information and participant protection. Researchers must address privacy, confidentiality, and data security, especially with private groups. Informed consent is essential, requiring researchers to share information and ensure voluntary participation. Publicly available data may not always require IRB review or informed consent. Researchers must be mindful of privacy policies and potential user deception. Minimizing harm and assessing risks to participant data are crucial. Legal and ethical complexities involve TOS, privacy policies, copyright, and human subjects research. Regulations like GDPR and CCPA give consumers data control, while COPPA protects children. Research ethics emphasizes privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent.

Understanding research paradigms and adhering to ethical and legal guidelines is crucial for responsible social media research. Social media rules vary globally, with the US having limited federal privacy laws, including the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). While some states have enacted their own laws, federal progress has stalled since COPPA. The European Union has comprehensive data privacy laws, with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) being the most important. Applicable to companies worldwide that collect or process data on EU residents, the GDPR imposes fines for non-compliance, even outside the EU. Key rules include ensuring legal, fair, and transparent practices, limiting data collection, and safeguarding data security. The GDPR also grants individuals greater control over their personal data. Research on social media falls under the GDPR’s special case, requiring researchers to follow rules and inform users about their participation. Concerns about national security led the US government to ban TikTok on company devices due to its Chinese ownership by ByteDance. A potential ban could impact content creators, brands, and consumers, highlighting the importance of international relations in social media. 

As social media evolves, ethical considerations like privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent become paramount in research. Government funding for research must follow Institutional Review Board (IRB) rules to ensure ethical conduct. IRBs review research projects based on ethical considerations. Social media research faces ethical challenges due to the potential for sensitive information disclosure and participant protection. Privacy concerns involve protecting privacy, confidentiality, and data security, especially when dealing with private groups or sensitive information. 

Research requires informed consent and avoids harming participants. Informed consent involves sharing information, helping participants understand, and ensuring their willingness to participate. Publicly available social media data are usually not reviewed by IRBs or require informed consent. Ethical considerations for social media research include privacy policies and the potential for user deception if data are used without knowledge. Researchers must minimize potential harm, such as compromising confidentiality. Social media research can reveal sensitive information, so researchers must assess and minimize risks to participant data. Legal and ethical complexities include terms of service, privacy policies, copyright, and human subjects research. 

Privacy regulations like the GDPR provide comprehensive protection for personal data. CCPA and GDPR give consumers control over their personal data. COPPA protects the privacy of children under 13 online. Researchers must obtain informed consent from participants, explaining the research project and obtaining consent based on their understanding. Data protection principles and federal regulations protect human subjects. Privacy policies explain how a platform uses, discloses, and manages user data. Research ethics guides research involving human subjects, emphasizing privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent.

 

That wraps up our discussion on the ethical considerations in social media research for today. Remember, responsible research is good research. Keep studying, keep learning, and keep pushing towards your academic goals. Don’t forget to follow me on all platforms @Kingmusa428 and check out more episodes at kingmusa428.com. Catch you next time!"