Dear Casey, Michael, Alex, Peter, Dan, Christopher, Sohail, Rasha, Liz, kalev, yohanan, Ruth, and Daniel (whew!) First of all, a thousand thanks for all the comments, suggestions of resources, etc. I, at least, have found the thread to be most helpful. With world enough and time, I hope to consolidate all of this into something of a case study / resource list for inclusion in a resource data base on ethics that we hope to build up as part of our work on IRE. I may also need to apologize for any lack of clarity and/or giving the wrong impression. The case is not a current, "live" one, but part of a project I was recently asked to evaluate and, because of confidentiality requirements, can say nothing more specific about at this point in time. Again, all of your comments and contributions have been most helpful. One more terrific example of our "from the ground up" / dialogical approach to ethics - again, many thanks indeed. Best, - charles On 12/01/18 00:47, Casey Lynn Fiesler wrote:
re: the terms of service issue, though this is by no means legal advice, I wrote up a legal/ethical analysis based on the also relevant recent LinkedIn case. https://medium.com/@cfiesler/law-ethics-of-scraping-what-hiq-v-linkedin-coul...
The ACM SIGCHI ethics committee (disclaimer: I am on it) also wrote about this issue recently: https://medium.com/sigchi-ethics-committee/do-researchers-need-to-follow-tos...
My personal take these days is that we should be thinking about potential harms - to both users and the company, and considering reasonable user expectations - probably more than legal problems though.
Casey
— Casey Fiesler Assistant Professor Department of Information Science University of Colorado Boulder
On Jan 11, 2018, at 9:48 AM, Michael T Zimmer <zimmerm@uwm.edu<mailto:zimmerm@uwm.edu>> wrote:
Further, the U.S. 9th Circuit just ruled that violating a website’s terms of service is not, in and of itself, a crime. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/ninth-circuit-doubles-down-violating-w...
-- Michael Zimmer, PhD Associate Professor, School of Information Studies Director, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu<mailto:zimmerm@uwm.edu><mailto:zimmerm@uwm.edu> w: http://secure-web.cisco.com/1YfJi_8C0EP86lue7f3TStYfEgePMINPqhp22u2M-fc5hMQNFjczP6vM00jLRKeA5wWccPwh6b5RAmQYypotRYNtlyhUZI4CpmlJVjnSeYCa1offGLgsWdU6akWwCe-KQsAV6bmHtZ81ux0bKh2QTWv2EoyBglH3SN0AghS1oYeXw_ByIrlUh3w5nbpvWKYgvHOquC3q5j468VZU0VksVov6m6TBnsHqUfZgFiNdNzI0fu2nIGgSNP6rtvfkCxP5qVPieKoQS-K-ZrKvAOX5YUnYaIYr5ji33v0qOplUdqDNDgT-8HzoXiZGRu-ha5_kLWHMk6x8yf55vFQ0xMCYJWopiFJqaThywaX4irE-FhQVsLBEwxy1rj2CcuhWdl_fuhUIw3nme3rOnoizWKhGj_0yoEP4SmnFjy1lvha-5N_iFsn8ybyeBCE8le0SIGlVo/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaelzimmer.org<http://secure-web.cisco.com/1YfJi_8C0EP86lue7f3TStYfEgePMINPqhp22u2M-fc5hMQNFjczP6vM00jLRKeA5wWccPwh6b5RAmQYypotRYNtlyhUZI4CpmlJVjnSeYCa1offGLgsWdU6akWwCe-KQsAV6bmHtZ81ux0bKh2QTWv2EoyBglH3SN0AghS1oYeXw_ByIrlUh3w5nbpvWKYgvHOquC3q5j468VZU0VksVov6m6TBnsHqUfZgFiNdNzI0fu2nIGgSNP6rtvfkCxP5qVPieKoQS-K-ZrKvAOX5YUnYaIYr5ji33v0qOplUdqDNDgT-8HzoXiZGRu-ha5_kLWHMk6x8yf55vFQ0xMCYJWopiFJqaThywaX4irE-FhQVsLBEwxy1rj2CcuhWdl_fuhUIw3nme3rOnoizWKhGj_0yoEP4SmnFjy1lvha-5N_iFsn8ybyeBCE8le0SIGlVo/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaelzimmer.org>
On Jan 10, 2018, at 3:37 PM, Dan L. Burk <dburk@uci.edu<mailto:dburk@uci.edu><mailto:dburk@uci.edu>> wrote:
So, although I am not saying that the study design is ethical, or even necessarily a good idea, I would most definitely take issue with either the specific assertion that violating an adhesion contract is always unethical (it is called an adhesion contract for good reason), and with the more general assertion that violations of law are always unethical.
Also, non-trivially, the assertion is a non-sequitur: minors generally can't enter into binding contracts, so there is by definition no contract for them to violate.
None of that means you should go ahead and do it; only that if you decline to do so, it should be for some other reasons.
Cheers, DLB
Dan L. Burk Chancellor's Professor of Law University of California, Irvine ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2017-18 Fulbright Cybersecurity Scholar
On 2018-01-10 09:28, Christopher J. Richter wrote:
Dear Charles,
TOS agreements are most often legally binding. Requiring minors (indeed any study participant, but especially minors) to violate a legal contract, whether online or off, is unethical on the face of it.
Then there is the issue of deception, of whom and how interactions on the fake accounts are deceiving. Deception, by definition, undermines informed consent. Will those who are deceived be debriefed? If not, it's problematic.
Christopher J. Richter, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Communication Studies Hollins University Roanoke VA, USA
On Jan 10, 2018, at 4:44 PM, Charles M. Ess <c.m.ess@media.uio.no<mailto:c.m.ess@media.uio.no><mailto:c.m.ess@media.uio.no>> wrote:
Dear AoIRists,
What are your thoughts regarding the following?
A research project involves a small number of students, legally minors - and requires that they set up fake FB accounts for the sake of role-playing in an educational context? Of course, fake accounts are a clear violation of the FB ToS.
I know we've discussed the ethics of researchers doing this (with mixed results, i.e., some for, some concerned).
But I'm curious what folk think / feel about this version of the problem.
Many thanks in advance, - charles -- Professor in Media Studies Department of Media and Communication University of Oslo <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>
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-- Professor in Media Studies Department of Media and Communication University of Oslo <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html> Postboks 1093 Blindern 0317 Oslo, Norway c.m.ess@media.uio.no