Hello everybody, Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from Twitter for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part of the query - so not a selection criterion)? Many thanks. Best wishes, Sandrine Sandrine Roginsky Associate Professor Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO
Dear Sandrine, I've never done this, but I can't really imagine a moment when it would be necessary. I would save your money and design a more accessible study. I tell my students to never pay for anything related to research, and I would give the same advice to colleagues. Others who have more experience may have more direct testimonies. Hope this helps, Peter Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his Associate Professor of Communication Coker University 300 East College Avenue Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 843.383.8379 pgloviczki@coker.edu Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 8:40 AM Sandrine Roginsky < sandrine.roginsky@uclouvain.be> wrote:
Hello everybody,
Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from Twitter for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part of the query - so not a selection criterion)?
Many thanks.
Best wishes, Sandrine
Sandrine Roginsky Associate Professor
Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Hello Sandrine, For my working paper, we needed to harvest data. The computer scientist co-author wrote a script. Due to the excessive cost of buying tweets, we refrained from going that route. One excellent researcher in this field would be Kate Starbird and her team at UW. They could offer excellent advice. Good luck! Amy On Thu 10. Sep 2020 at 14:44, Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD < pgloviczki@coker.edu> wrote:
Dear Sandrine,
I've never done this, but I can't really imagine a moment when it would be necessary. I would save your money and design a more accessible study.
I tell my students to never pay for anything related to research, and I would give the same advice to colleagues.
Others who have more experience may have more direct testimonies.
Hope this helps, Peter
Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his Associate Professor of Communication Coker University 300 East College Avenue Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 843.383.8379 pgloviczki@coker.edu
Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 8:40 AM Sandrine Roginsky < sandrine.roginsky@uclouvain.be> wrote:
Hello everybody,
Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from Twitter for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part of the query - so not a selection criterion)?
Many thanks.
Best wishes, Sandrine
Sandrine Roginsky Associate Professor
Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Amy Ruckes *Independent Researcher* Disinformation and Society http://ruckes.website2.me/
I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple occasions. I disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own personal money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it. Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few ways. I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I call it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a keyword[s] and a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on the number of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum price is a little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the five-figure range, especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. Also, they have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" data requests are not public--I've asked. Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill out this form and ask about it: https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application The associated metadata are the same as provided through the standard APIs. These can be found here: https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/... Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only when users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I will also say that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as GZIPped JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of data is far too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me to access my scripts. Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, including its Premium API (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis) and its Enterprise API (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/). These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward corporate and other well-funded clients. Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may have some relevant info: https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re... Best, /DEEN On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote:
Hello everybody,
Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from Twitter for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part of the query - so not a selection criterion)?
Many thanks.
Best wishes, Sandrine
Sandrine Roginsky Associate Professor
Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time>
Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to having to use personal funds. Fondly, Peter Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his Associate Professor of Communication Coker University 300 East College Avenue Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 843.383.8379 pgloviczki@coker.edu Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com> wrote:
I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple occasions. I disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own personal money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it.
Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few ways. I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I call it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a keyword[s] and a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on the number of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum price is a little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the five-figure range, especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. Also, they have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" data requests are not public--I've asked.
Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill out this form and ask about it:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application
The associated metadata are the same as provided through the standard APIs. These can be found here:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/... Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only when users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I will also say that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as GZIPped JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of data is far too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me to access my scripts.
Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, including its Premium API (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis) and its Enterprise API (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/). These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward corporate and other well-funded clients.
Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may have some relevant info:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re...
Best, /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote:
Hello everybody,
Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from Twitter for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part of the query - so not a selection criterion)?
Many thanks.
Best wishes, Sandrine
Sandrine Roginsky Associate Professor
Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
There is some scholarship on the various options which have continued to evolve over time with respect to Twitter. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/864 I agree that there is usually sufficient free, real time data to gather from Twitter to reach saturation on most real time current research questions. My personal experience with the cost and regulation of historical Twitter access for academia is a cautionary tale. Most of what academics want to study, and often the way they do it, violates the clear language of the Twitter Terms of Service and also the increasingly widespread right to be forgotten. If you are storing spreadsheets of Twitter data that includes over time more and more material from deleted accounts or deleted Tweets, this is problematic from a legal perspective and raises ethical review questions that should not be glossed over in any wikileaks fashion by journal editors or university ethics officers. ~Stu Dr. Stu ShulmanU.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Valeo FC & Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> Volunteer Coach *Is your player ready to give back to the game? *Contact Coach Stu about winter & spring 2020 volunteer efforts. [image: Capacidad] <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD < pgloviczki@coker.edu> wrote:
Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to having to use personal funds.
Fondly, Peter
Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his Associate Professor of Communication Coker University 300 East College Avenue Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 843.383.8379 pgloviczki@coker.edu
Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com> wrote:
I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple occasions. I disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own personal money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it.
Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few ways. I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I call it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a keyword[s] and a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on the number of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum price is a little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the five-figure range, especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. Also, they have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" data requests are not public--I've asked.
Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill out this form and ask about it:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application
The associated metadata are the same as provided through the standard APIs. These can be found here:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/...
Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only when users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I will also say that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as GZIPped JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of data is far too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me to access my scripts.
Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, including its Premium API (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis) and its Enterprise API (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/). These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward corporate and other well-funded clients.
Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may have some relevant info:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re...
Best, /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote:
Hello everybody,
Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from
for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part of the query - so not a selection criterion)?
Many thanks.
Best wishes, Sandrine
Sandrine Roginsky Associate Professor
Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
The streaming API is great--if 1) you're certain of all your search criteria in advance, and 2) you have a well-calibrated hardware/software setup dedicated to real-time data collection. In practice, researchers often need to add keywords and other criteria after the fact, or the significance of certain events/individuals only becomes clear later, or the limitations of their data collection setup do not become apparent until it fails, etc. The obvious advantage of streaming is that it's free, but it is not viable for a substantial subset of use cases. Sometimes the only way to obtain high-quality historical Twitter data is to purchase it. The ethical issues Stu mentions are as yet unresolved. Theoretically, users should be able to demand removal of their data from academic databases at any time, but this is a practical impossibility. Most Twitter-based research would be impossible without storage of the full text and metadata, and there are no widely-used guidelines about how that data should be managed or sunset aside from Twitter's prohibition on the sharing of complete datasets. Certainly something we should continue to think about how best to address... /DEEN On 9/10/2020 9:39 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote:
There is some scholarship on the various options which have continued to evolve over time with respect to Twitter. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/864
I agree that there is usually sufficient free, real time data to gather from Twitter to reach saturation on most real time current research questions.
My personal experience with the cost and regulation of historical Twitter access for academia is a cautionary tale. Most of what academics want to study, and often the way they do it, violates the clear language of the Twitter Terms of Service and also the increasingly widespread right to be forgotten. If you are storing spreadsheets of Twitter data that includes over time more and more material from deleted accounts or deleted Tweets, this is problematic from a legal perspective and raises ethical review questions that should not be glossed over in any wikileaks fashion by journal editors or university ethics officers.
~Stu Dr. Stu Shulman U.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Valeo FC & Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> Volunteer Coach /*Is your player ready to give back to the game?* /Contact Coach Stu about winter & spring 2020 volunteer efforts. Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13>
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD <pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>> wrote:
Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to having to use personal funds.
Fondly, Peter
Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his Associate Professor of Communication Coker University 300 East College Avenue Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 843.383.8379 pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>
Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>> wrote:
> I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple occasions. I > disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the > most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own personal > money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it. > > Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few ways. > I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I call > it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a keyword[s] and > a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on the number > of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum price is a > little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the five-figure range, > especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. Also, they > have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those > related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" data > requests are not public--I've asked. > > Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill out this > form and ask about it: > > https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application > > The associated metadata are the same as provided through the standard > APIs. These can be found here: > > https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/... > Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only when > users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I will also say > that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as GZIPped > JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of data is far > too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download > pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to > successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me to access my > scripts. > > Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, including its > Premium API > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis) and > its Enterprise API > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/). > These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward > corporate and other well-funded clients. > > Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may have > some relevant info: > > https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re... > > Best, /DEEN > > On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote: > > Hello everybody, > > > > Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from Twitter > for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which > information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is > language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part > of the query - so not a selection criterion)? > > > > Many thanks. > > > > Best wishes, > > Sandrine > > > > > > > > Sandrine Roginsky > > Associate Professor > > > > Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication > > Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > -- > Deen Freelon, Ph.D. > Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media > Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | > https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ > Schedule an appointment with me > <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ > _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time>
It would be great if we didn't have to pay for social media data (or research in general). But one way or other you have to pay either by learning how to do it or paying someone else to do it for you -- and while you can scrape some material, there are ethical and practical considerations that make this problematic. I do take the point that there is a wealth of content out there to study for free -- but I don't think this is true of a significant study of social media content on important issues. It would great if social media data were like other content -- imagine a situation in which universities subscribed to social media feeds the way that many subscribe to Nexis Uni for traditional media content. We actually had a roundtable about researchers acquiring data etc. via social media analytics companies at the American Political Science Association Political Communication Pre-Conference this week. You can see our pre-record here: https://youtu.be/jErwj9ZAXa4 Sarah Oates Professor and Senior Scholar Philip Merrill College of Journalism University of Maryland College Park, MD 20457 Email: soates@umd.edu Phone: 301 455 2332 www.media-politics.com Twitter: @media_politics *Support the UMD Student Crisis Fund <https://giving.umd.edu/giving/showPage.php?name=crisis-funding> today. * On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:55 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com> wrote:
The streaming API is great--if 1) you're certain of all your search criteria in advance, and 2) you have a well-calibrated hardware/software setup dedicated to real-time data collection. In practice, researchers often need to add keywords and other criteria after the fact, or the significance of certain events/individuals only becomes clear later, or the limitations of their data collection setup do not become apparent until it fails, etc. The obvious advantage of streaming is that it's free, but it is not viable for a substantial subset of use cases. Sometimes the only way to obtain high-quality historical Twitter data is to purchase it.
The ethical issues Stu mentions are as yet unresolved. Theoretically, users should be able to demand removal of their data from academic databases at any time, but this is a practical impossibility. Most Twitter-based research would be impossible without storage of the full text and metadata, and there are no widely-used guidelines about how that data should be managed or sunset aside from Twitter's prohibition on the sharing of complete datasets. Certainly something we should continue to think about how best to address... /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 9:39 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote:
There is some scholarship on the various options which have continued to evolve over time with respect to Twitter. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/864
I agree that there is usually sufficient free, real time data to gather from Twitter to reach saturation on most real time current research questions.
My personal experience with the cost and regulation of historical Twitter access for academia is a cautionary tale. Most of what academics want to study, and often the way they do it, violates the clear language of the Twitter Terms of Service and also the increasingly widespread right to be forgotten. If you are storing spreadsheets of Twitter data that includes over time more and more material from deleted accounts or deleted Tweets, this is problematic from a legal perspective and raises ethical review questions that should not be glossed over in any wikileaks fashion by journal editors or university ethics officers.
~Stu Dr. Stu Shulman U.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Valeo FC & Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> Volunteer Coach /*Is your player ready to give back to the game?* /Contact Coach Stu about winter & spring 2020 volunteer efforts. Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13>
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD <pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>> wrote:
Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to having to use personal funds.
Fondly, Peter
Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his Associate Professor of Communication Coker University 300 East College Avenue Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 843.383.8379 pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>
Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>> wrote:
> I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple occasions. I > disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the > most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own personal > money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it. > > Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few ways. > I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I call > it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a keyword[s] and > a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on the number > of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum price is a > little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the five-figure range, > especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. Also, they > have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those > related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" data > requests are not public--I've asked. > > Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill out this > form and ask about it: > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application
> > The associated metadata are the same as provided through the standard > APIs. These can be found here: > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/...
> Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only
when
> users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I will also say > that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as GZIPped > JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of data is far > too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download > pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to > successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me to access my > scripts. > > Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, including its > Premium API > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis) and > its Enterprise API > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/
).
> These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward > corporate and other well-funded clients. > > Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may have > some relevant info: > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re...
> > Best, /DEEN > > On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote: > > Hello everybody, > > > > Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from Twitter > for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which > information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is > language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part > of the query - so not a selection criterion)? > > > > Many thanks. > > > > Best wishes, > > Sandrine > > > > > > > > Sandrine Roginsky > > Associate Professor > > > > Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication > > Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > -- > Deen Freelon, Ph.D. > Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media > Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | > https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ > Schedule an appointment with me > <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ > _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
There is nothing theoretical about checking in real time for deletions. When you study a Tweet's content in the Twitter display, if a Tweet is deleted or an account suspended or deleted, the Tweet will not display. That is real time compliance. We have done it for many years now, all the while advising students and faculty on the ethical importance of this point. The "right to be forgotten" is law in many countries, so I am unsure how that is unresolved. Something is either legal or it is not. If anyone reading this has any of my deleted Tweets from my deleted account, the Canadian part of me requests you immediately delete them. If you lack the ability to check for compliance in real time, should you be handling my data and violating my right to be forgotten under the broad banner of research? I have tweeted extensively about acts by a hostile foreign power to game the imminent election. I have recently deleted personal Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts. Nobody has any business holding that data. It is unethical. There are various guidelines about legally sharing lists of Tweet IDs for rehydration and replication (something almost never done) versus sharing spreadsheets of complete data extracts or the raw JSON, which is done all the time in defiance of the Twitter ToS. On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:55 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com> wrote: The streaming API is great--if 1) you're certain of all your search
criteria in advance, and 2) you have a well-calibrated hardware/software setup dedicated to real-time data collection. In practice, researchers often need to add keywords and other criteria after the fact, or the significance of certain events/individuals only becomes clear later, or the limitations of their data collection setup do not become apparent until it fails, etc. The obvious advantage of streaming is that it's free, but it is not viable for a substantial subset of use cases. Sometimes the only way to obtain high-quality historical Twitter data is to purchase it.
The ethical issues Stu mentions are as yet unresolved. Theoretically, users should be able to demand removal of their data from academic databases at any time, but this is a practical impossibility. Most Twitter-based research would be impossible without storage of the full text and metadata, and there are no widely-used guidelines about how that data should be managed or sunset aside from Twitter's prohibition on the sharing of complete datasets. Certainly something we should continue to think about how best to address... /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 9:39 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote:
There is some scholarship on the various options which have continued to evolve over time with respect to Twitter. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/864
I agree that there is usually sufficient free, real time data to gather from Twitter to reach saturation on most real time current research questions.
My personal experience with the cost and regulation of historical Twitter access for academia is a cautionary tale. Most of what academics want to study, and often the way they do it, violates the clear language of the Twitter Terms of Service and also the increasingly widespread right to be forgotten. If you are storing spreadsheets of Twitter data that includes over time more and more material from deleted accounts or deleted Tweets, this is problematic from a legal perspective and raises ethical review questions that should not be glossed over in any wikileaks fashion by journal editors or university ethics officers.
~Stu Dr. Stu Shulman U.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Valeo FC & Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> Volunteer Coach /*Is your player ready to give back to the game?* /Contact Coach Stu about winter & spring 2020 volunteer efforts. Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13>
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD <pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>> wrote:
Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to having to use personal funds.
Fondly, Peter
Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his Associate Professor of Communication Coker University 300 East College Avenue Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 843.383.8379 pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>
Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>> wrote:
> I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple occasions. I > disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the > most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own personal > money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it. > > Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few ways. > I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I call > it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a keyword[s] and > a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on the number > of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum price is a > little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the five-figure range, > especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. Also, they > have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those > related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" data > requests are not public--I've asked. > > Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill out this > form and ask about it: > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application
> > The associated metadata are the same as provided through the standard > APIs. These can be found here: > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/...
> Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only
when
> users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I will also say > that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as GZIPped > JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of data is far > too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download > pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to > successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me to access my > scripts. > > Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, including its > Premium API > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis) and > its Enterprise API > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/
).
> These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward > corporate and other well-funded clients. > > Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may have > some relevant info: > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re...
> > Best, /DEEN > > On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote: > > Hello everybody, > > > > Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from Twitter > for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which > information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is > language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part > of the query - so not a selection criterion)? > > > > Many thanks. > > > > Best wishes, > > Sandrine > > > > > > > > Sandrine Roginsky > > Associate Professor > > > > Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication > > Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > -- > Deen Freelon, Ph.D. > Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media > Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | > https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ > Schedule an appointment with me > <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ > _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Sure, many countries have a right to be forgotten. The US doesn't, and AFAIK there's little clear case law that applies to individuals' presence in research datasets. If someone asks me to remove their data from my datasets, I'm happy to do so, but I'm not willing to prospectively monitor Twitter's platform for deletions so that my datasets always match what is currently available on Twitter. That is technically infeasible for me, and I suspect for many others as well. The practicality aspect I mentioned applies also to users. You can ask AIR-L members to remove your data, but what assurances do you have that they've done so? It's impossible even to check that they've actually read your message. Now consider all the other researchers' datasets of which your data may be a part--there's no way to even know who to ask. And all of this to prevent your data from being one point among millions, with no exposure of any identifying information? It's little wonder yours is the first data removal request I've ever received, but as I said, I'll honor it. /DEEN On 9/10/2020 10:49 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote:
There is nothing theoretical about checking in real time for deletions. When you study a Tweet's content in the Twitter display, if a Tweet is deleted or an account suspended or deleted, the Tweet will not display. That is real time compliance. We have done it for many years now, all the while advising students and faculty on the ethical importance of this point.
The "right to be forgotten" is law in many countries, so I am unsure how that is unresolved. Something is either legal or it is not. If anyone reading this has any of my deleted Tweets from my deleted account, the Canadian part of me requests you immediately delete them. If you lack the ability to check for compliance in real time, should you be handling my data and violating my right to be forgotten under the broad banner of research? I have tweeted extensively about acts by a hostile foreign power to game the imminent election. I have recently deleted personal Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts. Nobody has any business holding that data. It is unethical.
There are various guidelines about legally sharing lists of Tweet IDs for rehydration and replication (something almost never done) versus sharing spreadsheets of complete data extracts or the raw JSON, which is done all the time in defiance of the Twitter ToS.
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:55 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>> wrote:
The streaming API is great--if 1) you're certain of all your search criteria in advance, and 2) you have a well-calibrated hardware/software setup dedicated to real-time data collection. In practice, researchers often need to add keywords and other criteria after the fact, or the significance of certain events/individuals only becomes clear later, or the limitations of their data collection setup do not become apparent until it fails, etc. The obvious advantage of streaming is that it's free, but it is not viable for a substantial subset of use cases. Sometimes the only way to obtain high-quality historical Twitter data is to purchase it.
The ethical issues Stu mentions are as yet unresolved. Theoretically, users should be able to demand removal of their data from academic databases at any time, but this is a practical impossibility. Most Twitter-based research would be impossible without storage of the full text and metadata, and there are no widely-used guidelines about how that data should be managed or sunset aside from Twitter's prohibition on the sharing of complete datasets. Certainly something we should continue to think about how best to address... /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 9:39 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote: > There is some scholarship on the various options which have continued > to evolve over time with respect to Twitter. > https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/864 > > I agree that there is usually sufficient free, real time data to > gather from Twitter to reach saturation on most real time current > research questions. > > My personal experience with the cost and regulation of historical > Twitter access for academia is a cautionary tale. Most of what > academics want to study, and often the way they do it, violates the > clear language of the Twitter Terms of Service and also the > increasingly widespread right to be forgotten. If you are storing > spreadsheets of Twitter data that includes over time more and more > material from deleted accounts or deleted Tweets, this is problematic > from a legal perspective and raises ethical review questions > that should not be glossed over in any wikileaks fashion by journal > editors or university ethics officers. > > ~Stu > Dr. Stu Shulman U.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Valeo FC & > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> Volunteer Coach > /*Is your player ready to give back to the game?* /Contact Coach Stu > about winter & spring 2020 volunteer efforts. > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> > > > > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD > <pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>>> wrote: > > Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to > having to > use personal funds. > > Fondly, Peter > > Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his > Associate Professor of Communication > Coker University > 300 East College Avenue > Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 > 843.383.8379 > pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>> > > Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) > Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC > 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com> > <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>>> wrote: > > > I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple > occasions. I > > disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the > > most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own > personal > > money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it. > > > > Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few > ways. > > I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I > call > > it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a > keyword[s] and > > a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on > the number > > of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum > price is a > > little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the > five-figure range, > > especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. > Also, they > > have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those > > related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" > data > > requests are not public--I've asked. > > > > Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill > out this > > form and ask about it: > > > > > https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application > > > > The associated metadata are the same as provided through the > standard > > APIs. These can be found here: > > > > > https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/... > > Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only when > > users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I will > also say > > that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as > GZIPped > > JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of data > is far > > too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download > > pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to > > successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me to > access my > > scripts. > > > > Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, > including its > > Premium API > > > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis) > and > > its Enterprise API > > > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/). > > These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward > > corporate and other well-funded clients. > > > > Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may > have > > some relevant info: > > > > > https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re... > > > > Best, /DEEN > > > > On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote: > > > Hello everybody, > > > > > > Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets > from Twitter > > for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to > know which > > information is given about the tweets harvested through the > query (e.g. is > > language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it > isn't part > > of the query - so not a selection criterion)? > > > > > > Many thanks. > > > > > > Best wishes, > > > Sandrine > > > > > > > > > > > > Sandrine Roginsky > > > Associate Professor > > > > > > Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and > Communication > > > Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > > -- > > Deen Freelon, Ph.D. > > Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media > > Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and > Public Life > > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > > http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | > > https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ > > Schedule an appointment with me > > <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> > > _______________________________________________ > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ >
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time>
There is a difference between not being able or willing and it not being possible. https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/compliance/overv... It is definitely possible and also required. Many research labs in academia find ways to comply with the documentation above. More, I suspect either know and ignore it, or simply do not know what is expected. It is similar to the need to comply with the office of sponsored research protocols for human subjects. You have to minimize the risk of harm. No compromises for researcher convenience or productivity demands. ~SWS On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 1:33 PM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com> wrote:
Sure, many countries have a right to be forgotten. The US doesn't, and AFAIK there's little clear case law that applies to individuals' presence in research datasets. If someone asks me to remove their data from my datasets, I'm happy to do so, but I'm not willing to prospectively monitor Twitter's platform for deletions so that my datasets always match what is currently available on Twitter. That is technically infeasible for me, and I suspect for many others as well.
The practicality aspect I mentioned applies also to users. You can ask AIR-L members to remove your data, but what assurances do you have that they've done so? It's impossible even to check that they've actually read your message. Now consider all the other researchers' datasets of which your data may be a part--there's no way to even know who to ask. And all of this to prevent your data from being one point among millions, with no exposure of any identifying information? It's little wonder yours is the first data removal request I've ever received, but as I said, I'll honor it. /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 10:49 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote:
There is nothing theoretical about checking in real time for deletions. When you study a Tweet's content in the Twitter display, if a Tweet is deleted or an account suspended or deleted, the Tweet will not display. That is real time compliance. We have done it for many years now, all the while advising students and faculty on the ethical importance of this point.
The "right to be forgotten" is law in many countries, so I am unsure how that is unresolved. Something is either legal or it is not. If anyone reading this has any of my deleted Tweets from my deleted account, the Canadian part of me requests you immediately delete them. If you lack the ability to check for compliance in real time, should you be handling my data and violating my right to be forgotten under the broad banner of research? I have tweeted extensively about acts by a hostile foreign power to game the imminent election. I have recently deleted personal Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts. Nobody has any business holding that data. It is unethical.
There are various guidelines about legally sharing lists of Tweet IDs for rehydration and replication (something almost never done) versus sharing spreadsheets of complete data extracts or the raw JSON, which is done all the time in defiance of the Twitter ToS.
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:55 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>> wrote:
The streaming API is great--if 1) you're certain of all your search criteria in advance, and 2) you have a well-calibrated hardware/software setup dedicated to real-time data collection. In practice, researchers often need to add keywords and other criteria after the fact, or the significance of certain events/individuals only becomes clear later, or the limitations of their data collection setup do not become apparent until it fails, etc. The obvious advantage of streaming is that it's free, but it is not viable for a substantial subset of use cases. Sometimes the only way to obtain high-quality historical Twitter data is to purchase it.
The ethical issues Stu mentions are as yet unresolved. Theoretically, users should be able to demand removal of their data from academic databases at any time, but this is a practical impossibility. Most Twitter-based research would be impossible without storage of the full text and metadata, and there are no widely-used guidelines about how that data should be managed or sunset aside from Twitter's prohibition on the sharing of complete datasets. Certainly something we should continue to think about how best to address... /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 9:39 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote: > There is some scholarship on the various options which have continued > to evolve over time with respect to Twitter. > https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/864 > > I agree that there is usually sufficient free, real time data to > gather from Twitter to reach saturation on most real time current > research questions. > > My personal experience with the cost and regulation of historical > Twitter access for academia is a cautionary tale. Most of what > academics want to study, and often the way they do it, violates the > clear language of the Twitter Terms of Service and also the > increasingly widespread right to be forgotten. If you are storing > spreadsheets of Twitter data that includes over time more and more > material from deleted accounts or deleted Tweets, this is problematic > from a legal perspective and raises ethical review questions > that should not be glossed over in any wikileaks fashion by journal > editors or university ethics officers. > > ~Stu > Dr. Stu Shulman U.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Valeo FC & > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> Volunteer Coach > /*Is your player ready to give back to the game?* /Contact Coach Stu > about winter & spring 2020 volunteer efforts. > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> > > > > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD > <pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>>> wrote: > > Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to > having to > use personal funds. > > Fondly, Peter > > Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his > Associate Professor of Communication > Coker University > 300 East College Avenue > Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 > 843.383.8379 > pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>> > > Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) > Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC > 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com> > <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>>> wrote: > > > I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple > occasions. I > > disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the > > most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own > personal > > money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it. > > > > Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few > ways. > > I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I > call > > it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a > keyword[s] and > > a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on > the number > > of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum > price is a > > little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the > five-figure range, > > especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. > Also, they > > have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those > > related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" > data > > requests are not public--I've asked. > > > > Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill > out this > > form and ask about it: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application
> > > > The associated metadata are the same as provided through the > standard > > APIs. These can be found here: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/...
> > Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only when > > users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I
will
> also say > > that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as > GZIPped > > JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of
data
> is far > > too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download > > pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to > > successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me to > access my > > scripts. > > > > Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, > including its > > Premium API > > > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis
)
> and > > its Enterprise API > > > (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/
).
> > These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward > > corporate and other well-funded clients. > > > > Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may > have > > some relevant info: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re...
> > > > Best, /DEEN > > > > On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote: > > > Hello everybody, > > > > > > Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets > from Twitter > > for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to > know which > > information is given about the tweets harvested through the > query (e.g. is > > language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it > isn't part > > of the query - so not a selection criterion)? > > > > > > Many thanks. > > > > > > Best wishes, > > > Sandrine > > > > > > > > > > > > Sandrine Roginsky > > > Associate Professor > > > > > > Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and > Communication > > > Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > > -- > > Deen Freelon, Ph.D. > > Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media > > Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and > Public Life > > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > > http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | > > https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ > > Schedule an appointment with me > > <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> > > _______________________________________________ > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ >
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
At my lab we made some experiments to automate or semi-automate user notification and tweet removal from our archives, while studying how the GDPR influences social network analysis research (paper here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3365524). Long story short: we encountered several difficulties, from Twitter blocking our notifications (because we qualified as evil bots :) ) to the potential burden on individual researchers having to take additional actions to increase data protection. But some (maybe sub-optimal) solutions are definitely feasible. For example we implemented an extension of an existing Twitter data collection tool that can be set up to regularly tweet some text with the same keyword that is being monitored informing users that we are monitoring it, with a link to a page with the required information about the research and where users can login with their Twitter account to request their tweets collected as part of the process. This was just a proof-of-concept, not engineered to scale to large data collections (in particular, pseudonymization was not optimized and thus slow), but it showed that this can be done "for real" with some limited resources, and that it cannot really be done by individual researchers for their own projects in general. In my opinion, incorporating such capabilities in "mainstream" Twitter data collection tools would greatly facilitate the adoption of best practices, that would then be as easy as clicking on a button while setting up data collection processes. The same is probably true for other platforms, although we have only tried this on Twitter. Matteo -- Matteo Magnani Docent (Associate Professor) in Computing Science and Distinguished university teacher Coordinator, Master’s programme in Data Science Director, Uppsala University InfoLab (http://infolab.it.uu.se) Nordic network on online disinformation (https://nordis.research.it.uu.se) Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University TW: @matmagnani @uuinfolab FB: @uuinfolab On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 7:50 PM Stuart Shulman <stuart.shulman@gmail.com> wrote:
There is a difference between not being able or willing and it not being possible.
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/compliance/overv...
It is definitely possible and also required. Many research labs in academia find ways to comply with the documentation above. More, I suspect either know and ignore it, or simply do not know what is expected. It is similar to the need to comply with the office of sponsored research protocols for human subjects. You have to minimize the risk of harm. No compromises for researcher convenience or productivity demands.
~SWS
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 1:33 PM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com> wrote:
Sure, many countries have a right to be forgotten. The US doesn't, and AFAIK there's little clear case law that applies to individuals' presence in research datasets. If someone asks me to remove their data from my datasets, I'm happy to do so, but I'm not willing to prospectively monitor Twitter's platform for deletions so that my datasets always match what is currently available on Twitter. That is technically infeasible for me, and I suspect for many others as well.
The practicality aspect I mentioned applies also to users. You can ask AIR-L members to remove your data, but what assurances do you have that they've done so? It's impossible even to check that they've actually read your message. Now consider all the other researchers' datasets of which your data may be a part--there's no way to even know who to ask. And all of this to prevent your data from being one point among millions, with no exposure of any identifying information? It's little wonder yours is the first data removal request I've ever received, but as I said, I'll honor it. /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 10:49 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote:
There is nothing theoretical about checking in real time for deletions. When you study a Tweet's content in the Twitter display, if a Tweet is deleted or an account suspended or deleted, the Tweet will not display. That is real time compliance. We have done it for many years now, all the while advising students and faculty on the ethical importance of this point.
The "right to be forgotten" is law in many countries, so I am unsure how that is unresolved. Something is either legal or it is not. If anyone reading this has any of my deleted Tweets from my deleted account, the Canadian part of me requests you immediately delete them. If you lack the ability to check for compliance in real time, should you be handling my data and violating my right to be forgotten under the broad banner of research? I have tweeted extensively about acts by a hostile foreign power to game the imminent election. I have recently deleted personal Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts. Nobody has any business holding that data. It is unethical.
There are various guidelines about legally sharing lists of Tweet IDs for rehydration and replication (something almost never done) versus sharing spreadsheets of complete data extracts or the raw JSON, which is done all the time in defiance of the Twitter ToS.
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:55 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>> wrote:
The streaming API is great--if 1) you're certain of all your search criteria in advance, and 2) you have a well-calibrated hardware/software setup dedicated to real-time data collection. In practice, researchers often need to add keywords and other criteria after the fact, or the significance of certain events/individuals only becomes clear later, or the limitations of their data collection setup do not become apparent until it fails, etc. The obvious advantage of streaming is that it's free, but it is not viable for a substantial subset of use cases. Sometimes the only way to obtain high-quality historical Twitter data is to purchase it.
The ethical issues Stu mentions are as yet unresolved. Theoretically, users should be able to demand removal of their data from academic databases at any time, but this is a practical impossibility. Most Twitter-based research would be impossible without storage of the full text and metadata, and there are no widely-used guidelines about how that data should be managed or sunset aside from Twitter's prohibition on the sharing of complete datasets. Certainly something we should continue to think about how best to address... /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 9:39 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote: > There is some scholarship on the various options which have continued > to evolve over time with respect to Twitter. > https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/864 > > I agree that there is usually sufficient free, real time data to > gather from Twitter to reach saturation on most real time current > research questions. > > My personal experience with the cost and regulation of historical > Twitter access for academia is a cautionary tale. Most of what > academics want to study, and often the way they do it, violates the > clear language of the Twitter Terms of Service and also the > increasingly widespread right to be forgotten. If you are storing > spreadsheets of Twitter data that includes over time more and more > material from deleted accounts or deleted Tweets, this is problematic > from a legal perspective and raises ethical review questions > that should not be glossed over in any wikileaks fashion by journal > editors or university ethics officers. > > ~Stu > Dr. Stu Shulman U.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Valeo FC & > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> Volunteer Coach > /*Is your player ready to give back to the game?* /Contact Coach Stu > about winter & spring 2020 volunteer efforts. > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> > > > > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD > <pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>>> wrote: > > Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to > having to > use personal funds. > > Fondly, Peter > > Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his > Associate Professor of Communication > Coker University > 300 East College Avenue > Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 > 843.383.8379 > pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>> > > Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) > Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC > 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com> > <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>>> wrote: > > > I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple > occasions. I > > disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the > > most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own > personal > > money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it. > > > > Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few > ways. > > I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I > call > > it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a > keyword[s] and > > a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on > the number > > of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum > price is a > > little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the > five-figure range, > > especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. > Also, they > > have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those > > related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" > data > > requests are not public--I've asked. > > > > Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill > out this > > form and ask about it: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application
> > > > The associated metadata are the same as provided through
the
> standard > > APIs. These can be found here: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/...
> > Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only when > > users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I
will
> also say > > that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as > GZIPped > > JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of
data
> is far > > too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download > > pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to > > successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me
to
> access my > > scripts. > > > > Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, > including its > > Premium API > > > (
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis )
> and > > its Enterprise API > > > (
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/ ).
> > These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward > > corporate and other well-funded clients. > > > > Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may > have > > some relevant info: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re...
> > > > Best, /DEEN > > > > On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote: > > > Hello everybody, > > > > > > Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying
tweets
> from Twitter > > for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to > know which > > information is given about the tweets harvested through the > query (e.g. is > > language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it > isn't part > > of the query - so not a selection criterion)? > > > > > > Many thanks. > > > > > > Best wishes, > > > Sandrine > > > > > > > > > > > > Sandrine Roginsky > > > Associate Professor > > > > > > Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and > Communication > > > Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > > -- > > Deen Freelon, Ph.D. > > Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and
Media
> > Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and > Public Life > > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > > http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | > > https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ > > Schedule an appointment with me > > <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> > > _______________________________________________ > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ >
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Matteo, Definitely worth the effort! You may be hitting rate limits trying to check batches, which would not technically make you a bot, but it would put you in the penalty box with Twitter for asking too much of the API all at once, even in the name of compliance. The manageable method is to review individual Tweets using the Twitter display. In doing so, when a researcher loads a Tweet stored in the database, the researcher pulls the content in real time, producing many advantages, not just compliance. For compliance, if the account is deleted or suspended, the content will not display and a message tells the researcher what the cause is. This method avoids any rate limits associated with large batch compliance checking by just going one at a time. You also avoid the pitfall of deletions and suspensions that happen moments, minutes, days, or weeks after your most recent batch check. Even if you master the method of bulk compliance checking, the results do not age well. I do like the ethical principle of getting folks to opt in, however, most probably won't and so that takes largely unrepresentative Twitter data and further skews it to just those users willing to opt in, a very select group. Spreadsheets of Tweets are derivative not authentic Twitter data. Tweets are much more than flat text and metadata. If the Tweet is still live on Twitter, the many advantages of using the Twitter display beyond compliance checking include: - Media previews are displayed, - Images are displayed, - User images are displayed, - Emoji are always displayed correctly in full color, - Replies are seen in context attached to the original Tweet, - Retweet and like counts show real time values. There are other advantages. If you have never looked at Twitter datasets for research using the Twitter display, arguably you have never looked at actual Twitter data for research. Instead, you have been studying a degraded convenience sample that is a by-product. For many reasons and a variety of methodologies, it is important to preserve the authentic digital artifact including the display that ensures both contextual validity for substantive inferences and ethical standards for the handling of data that no researcher can own or legally store forever. While there are many uses for extracted features of Twitter data (ex., graphml files for network graphs), the practice of storing Tweets and their metadata in spreadsheets forever remains problematic. Perhaps the most problematic idea in this thread is the notion that all users of Twitter are responsible for notifying all researchers when they delete a Tweet or an account. I cannot conceive how that might work. How would I know which researchers hold data that I created and have the legal right to delete? The obligation in fact falls on the ethical researcher to put compliance methods in place, not the individual Twitter user creating and deleting content, in many cases on a daily basis. ~Stu Dr. Stuart ShulmanU.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Northampton High School Boys Varsity Coach On Tue, Sep 15, 2020 at 3:43 AM Matteo Magnani <mat.magnani@gmail.com> wrote:
At my lab we made some experiments to automate or semi-automate user notification and tweet removal from our archives, while studying how the GDPR influences social network analysis research (paper here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3365524). Long story short: we encountered several difficulties, from Twitter blocking our notifications (because we qualified as evil bots :) ) to the potential burden on individual researchers having to take additional actions to increase data protection. But some (maybe sub-optimal) solutions are definitely feasible. For example we implemented an extension of an existing Twitter data collection tool that can be set up to regularly tweet some text with the same keyword that is being monitored informing users that we are monitoring it, with a link to a page with the required information about the research and where users can login with their Twitter account to request their tweets collected as part of the process. This was just a proof-of-concept, not engineered to scale to large data collections (in particular, pseudonymization was not optimized and thus slow), but it showed that this can be done "for real" with some limited resources, and that it cannot really be done by individual researchers for their own projects in general. In my opinion, incorporating such capabilities in "mainstream" Twitter data collection tools would greatly facilitate the adoption of best practices, that would then be as easy as clicking on a button while setting up data collection processes. The same is probably true for other platforms, although we have only tried this on Twitter.
Matteo
-- Matteo Magnani Docent (Associate Professor) in Computing Science and Distinguished university teacher Coordinator, Master’s programme in Data Science Director, Uppsala University InfoLab (http://infolab.it.uu.se) Nordic network on online disinformation (https://nordis.research.it.uu.se) Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University TW: @matmagnani @uuinfolab FB: @uuinfolab
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 7:50 PM Stuart Shulman <stuart.shulman@gmail.com> wrote:
There is a difference between not being able or willing and it not being possible.
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/compliance/overv...
It is definitely possible and also required. Many research labs in academia find ways to comply with the documentation above. More, I suspect either know and ignore it, or simply do not know what is expected. It is similar to the need to comply with the office of sponsored research protocols for human subjects. You have to minimize the risk of harm. No compromises for researcher convenience or productivity demands.
~SWS
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 1:33 PM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com> wrote:
Sure, many countries have a right to be forgotten. The US doesn't, and AFAIK there's little clear case law that applies to individuals' presence in research datasets. If someone asks me to remove their data from my datasets, I'm happy to do so, but I'm not willing to prospectively monitor Twitter's platform for deletions so that my datasets always match what is currently available on Twitter. That is technically infeasible for me, and I suspect for many others as well.
The practicality aspect I mentioned applies also to users. You can ask AIR-L members to remove your data, but what assurances do you have that they've done so? It's impossible even to check that they've actually read your message. Now consider all the other researchers' datasets of which your data may be a part--there's no way to even know who to ask. And all of this to prevent your data from being one point among millions, with no exposure of any identifying information? It's little wonder yours is the first data removal request I've ever received, but as I said, I'll honor it. /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 10:49 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote:
There is nothing theoretical about checking in real time for deletions. When you study a Tweet's content in the Twitter display, if a Tweet is deleted or an account suspended or deleted, the Tweet will not display. That is real time compliance. We have done it for many years now, all the while advising students and faculty on the ethical importance of this point.
The "right to be forgotten" is law in many countries, so I am unsure how that is unresolved. Something is either legal or it is not. If anyone reading this has any of my deleted Tweets from my deleted account, the Canadian part of me requests you immediately delete them. If you lack the ability to check for compliance in real time, should you be handling my data and violating my right to be forgotten under the broad banner of research? I have tweeted extensively about acts by a hostile foreign power to game the imminent election. I have recently deleted personal Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts. Nobody has any business holding that data. It is unethical.
There are various guidelines about legally sharing lists of Tweet IDs for rehydration and replication (something almost never done) versus sharing spreadsheets of complete data extracts or the raw JSON, which is done all the time in defiance of the Twitter ToS.
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:55 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>> wrote:
The streaming API is great--if 1) you're certain of all your search criteria in advance, and 2) you have a well-calibrated hardware/software setup dedicated to real-time data collection. In practice, researchers often need to add keywords and other criteria after the fact, or the significance of certain events/individuals only becomes clear later, or the limitations of their data collection setup do not become apparent until it fails, etc. The obvious advantage of streaming is that it's free, but it is not viable for a substantial subset of use cases. Sometimes the only way to obtain high-quality historical Twitter data is to purchase it.
The ethical issues Stu mentions are as yet unresolved. Theoretically, users should be able to demand removal of their data from academic databases at any time, but this is a practical impossibility. Most Twitter-based research would be impossible without storage of the full text and metadata, and there are no widely-used guidelines about how that data should be managed or sunset aside from Twitter's prohibition on the sharing of complete datasets. Certainly something we should continue to think about how best to address... /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 9:39 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote: > There is some scholarship on the various options which have continued > to evolve over time with respect to Twitter. > https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/864 > > I agree that there is usually sufficient free, real time data to > gather from Twitter to reach saturation on most real time current > research questions. > > My personal experience with the cost and regulation of historical > Twitter access for academia is a cautionary tale. Most of what > academics want to study, and often the way they do it, violates the > clear language of the Twitter Terms of Service and also the > increasingly widespread right to be forgotten. If you are storing > spreadsheets of Twitter data that includes over time more and more > material from deleted accounts or deleted Tweets, this is problematic > from a legal perspective and raises ethical review questions > that should not be glossed over in any wikileaks fashion by journal > editors or university ethics officers. > > ~Stu > Dr. Stu Shulman U.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Valeo FC & > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> Volunteer Coach > /*Is your player ready to give back to the game?* /Contact Coach Stu > about winter & spring 2020 volunteer efforts. > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> > > > > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD > <pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>>> wrote: > > Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to > having to > use personal funds. > > Fondly, Peter > > Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his > Associate Professor of Communication > Coker University > 300 East College Avenue > Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 > 843.383.8379 > pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>> > > Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) > Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC > 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com> > <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>>> wrote: > > > I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple > occasions. I > > disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the > > most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own > personal > > money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it. > > > > Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few > ways. > > I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I > call > > it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a > keyword[s] and > > a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on > the number > > of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum > price is a > > little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the > five-figure range, > > especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. > Also, they > > have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those > > related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" > data > > requests are not public--I've asked. > > > > Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill > out this > > form and ask about it: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application
> > > > The associated metadata are the same as provided through
the
> standard > > APIs. These can be found here: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/...
> > Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only when > > users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I
will
> also say > > that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as > GZIPped > > JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of
data
> is far > > too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download > > pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to > > successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me
to
> access my > > scripts. > > > > Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, > including its > > Premium API > > > (
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis )
> and > > its Enterprise API > > > (
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/ ).
> > These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward > > corporate and other well-funded clients. > > > > Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may > have > > some relevant info: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re...
> > > > Best, /DEEN > > > > On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote: > > > Hello everybody, > > > > > > Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying
tweets
> from Twitter > > for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to > know which > > information is given about the tweets harvested through
the
> query (e.g. is > > language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it > isn't part > > of the query - so not a selection criterion)? > > > > > > Many thanks. > > > > > > Best wishes, > > > Sandrine > > > > > > > > > > > > Sandrine Roginsky > > > Associate Professor > > > > > > Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and > Communication > > > Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > > -- > > Deen Freelon, Ph.D. > > Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and
Media
> > Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and > Public Life > > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > > http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | > > https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ > > Schedule an appointment with me > > <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> > > _______________________________________________ > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org
<mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ >
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Thank you Stuart, I like this perspective, I had not thought about it. It is indeed a complex intertwining of ethics, law, research methods, etc. I guess what I briefly described in my email was constrained by the objective of being compliant with the GDPR, so our experiments tested very specific legal requirements more than trying to describe a general good practice - although the two things are related. In the GDPR, putting a tweet in a database counts as processing and may require action independently of whether we are accessing it or not. Then, researchers would anyway get access to pseudonymized data, and require some pre-defined procedure to reveal the original details about the accounts. Also, when I referred to tweet deletion I was thinking about the right of users to have their tweets deleted from our archives, not about tweets they delete on Twitter. That can indeed make things even more difficult from a technical point of view, although I am not sure it is always necessary or good to delete these tweets depending on the research - for example, they could be tweets by public figures, and they could be relevant tweets having some impact, so observing the data without them could actually give a wrong picture in studies about information propagation, influence, etc. I don't know studies about this, but I am thinking of studies like the ones by Sinan Aral on fake online reviews suggesting that their later deletion would not solve the problem, because the effects have already been propagated. But now I'm maybe getting off topic :) Matteo -- Matteo Magnani Docent (Associate Professor) in Computing Science and Distinguished university teacher Coordinator, Master’s programme in Data Science Director, Uppsala University InfoLab (http://infolab.it.uu.se) Nordic network on online disinformation (https://nordis.research.it.uu.se) Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University TW: @matmagnani @uuinfolab FB: @uuinfolab On Tue, Sep 15, 2020 at 1:53 PM Stuart Shulman <stuart.shulman@gmail.com> wrote:
Matteo,
Definitely worth the effort! You may be hitting rate limits trying to check batches, which would not technically make you a bot, but it would put you in the penalty box with Twitter for asking too much of the API all at once, even in the name of compliance. The manageable method is to review individual Tweets using the Twitter display. In doing so, when a researcher loads a Tweet stored in the database, the researcher pulls the content in real time, producing many advantages, not just compliance. For compliance, if the account is deleted or suspended, the content will not display and a message tells the researcher what the cause is. This method avoids any rate limits associated with large batch compliance checking by just going one at a time. You also avoid the pitfall of deletions and suspensions that happen moments, minutes, days, or weeks after your most recent batch check. Even if you master the method of bulk compliance checking, the results do not age well.
I do like the ethical principle of getting folks to opt in, however, most probably won't and so that takes largely unrepresentative Twitter data and further skews it to just those users willing to opt in, a very select group.
Spreadsheets of Tweets are derivative not authentic Twitter data. Tweets are much more than flat text and metadata. If the Tweet is still live on Twitter, the many advantages of using the Twitter display beyond compliance checking include:
- Media previews are displayed, - Images are displayed, - User images are displayed, - Emoji are always displayed correctly in full color, - Replies are seen in context attached to the original Tweet, - Retweet and like counts show real time values.
There are other advantages. If you have never looked at Twitter datasets for research using the Twitter display, arguably you have never looked at actual Twitter data for research. Instead, you have been studying a degraded convenience sample that is a by-product. For many reasons and a variety of methodologies, it is important to preserve the authentic digital artifact including the display that ensures both contextual validity for substantive inferences and ethical standards for the handling of data that no researcher can own or legally store forever. While there are many uses for extracted features of Twitter data (ex., graphml files for network graphs), the practice of storing Tweets and their metadata in spreadsheets forever remains problematic.
Perhaps the most problematic idea in this thread is the notion that all users of Twitter are responsible for notifying all researchers when they delete a Tweet or an account. I cannot conceive how that might work. How would I know which researchers hold data that I created and have the legal right to delete? The obligation in fact falls on the ethical researcher to put compliance methods in place, not the individual Twitter user creating and deleting content, in many cases on a daily basis.
~Stu
Dr. Stuart ShulmanU.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Northampton High School Boys Varsity Coach
On Tue, Sep 15, 2020 at 3:43 AM Matteo Magnani <mat.magnani@gmail.com> wrote:
At my lab we made some experiments to automate or semi-automate user notification and tweet removal from our archives, while studying how the GDPR influences social network analysis research (paper here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3365524). Long story short: we encountered several difficulties, from Twitter blocking our notifications (because we qualified as evil bots :) ) to the potential burden on individual researchers having to take additional actions to increase data protection. But some (maybe sub-optimal) solutions are definitely feasible. For example we implemented an extension of an existing Twitter data collection tool that can be set up to regularly tweet some text with the same keyword that is being monitored informing users that we are monitoring it, with a link to a page with the required information about the research and where users can login with their Twitter account to request their tweets collected as part of the process. This was just a proof-of-concept, not engineered to scale to large data collections (in particular, pseudonymization was not optimized and thus slow), but it showed that this can be done "for real" with some limited resources, and that it cannot really be done by individual researchers for their own projects in general. In my opinion, incorporating such capabilities in "mainstream" Twitter data collection tools would greatly facilitate the adoption of best practices, that would then be as easy as clicking on a button while setting up data collection processes. The same is probably true for other platforms, although we have only tried this on Twitter.
Matteo
-- Matteo Magnani Docent (Associate Professor) in Computing Science and Distinguished university teacher Coordinator, Master’s programme in Data Science Director, Uppsala University InfoLab (http://infolab.it.uu.se) Nordic network on online disinformation (https://nordis.research.it.uu.se ) Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University TW: @matmagnani @uuinfolab FB: @uuinfolab
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 7:50 PM Stuart Shulman <stuart.shulman@gmail.com> wrote:
There is a difference between not being able or willing and it not being possible.
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/compliance/overv...
It is definitely possible and also required. Many research labs in academia find ways to comply with the documentation above. More, I suspect either know and ignore it, or simply do not know what is expected. It is similar to the need to comply with the office of sponsored research protocols for human subjects. You have to minimize the risk of harm. No compromises for researcher convenience or productivity demands.
~SWS
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 1:33 PM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com> wrote:
Sure, many countries have a right to be forgotten. The US doesn't, and AFAIK there's little clear case law that applies to individuals' presence in research datasets. If someone asks me to remove their data from my datasets, I'm happy to do so, but I'm not willing to prospectively monitor Twitter's platform for deletions so that my datasets always match what is currently available on Twitter. That is technically infeasible for me, and I suspect for many others as well.
The practicality aspect I mentioned applies also to users. You can ask AIR-L members to remove your data, but what assurances do you have that they've done so? It's impossible even to check that they've actually read your message. Now consider all the other researchers' datasets of which your data may be a part--there's no way to even know who to ask. And all of this to prevent your data from being one point among millions, with no exposure of any identifying information? It's little wonder yours is the first data removal request I've ever received, but as I said, I'll honor it. /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 10:49 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote:
There is nothing theoretical about checking in real time for deletions. When you study a Tweet's content in the Twitter display, if a Tweet is deleted or an account suspended or deleted, the Tweet will not display. That is real time compliance. We have done it for many years now, all the while advising students and faculty on the ethical importance of this point.
The "right to be forgotten" is law in many countries, so I am unsure how that is unresolved. Something is either legal or it is not. If anyone reading this has any of my deleted Tweets from my deleted account, the Canadian part of me requests you immediately delete them. If you lack the ability to check for compliance in real time, should you be handling my data and violating my right to be forgotten under the broad banner of research? I have tweeted extensively about acts by a hostile foreign power to game the imminent election. I have recently deleted personal Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts. Nobody has any business holding that data. It is unethical.
There are various guidelines about legally sharing lists of Tweet IDs for rehydration and replication (something almost never done) versus sharing spreadsheets of complete data extracts or the raw JSON, which is done all the time in defiance of the Twitter ToS.
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:55 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>> wrote:
The streaming API is great--if 1) you're certain of all your search criteria in advance, and 2) you have a well-calibrated hardware/software setup dedicated to real-time data collection. In practice, researchers often need to add keywords and other criteria after the fact, or the significance of certain events/individuals only becomes clear later, or the limitations of their data collection setup do not become apparent until it fails, etc. The obvious advantage of streaming is that it's free, but it is not viable for a substantial subset of use cases. Sometimes the only way to obtain high-quality historical Twitter data is to purchase it.
The ethical issues Stu mentions are as yet unresolved. Theoretically, users should be able to demand removal of their data from academic databases at any time, but this is a practical impossibility. Most Twitter-based research would be impossible without storage of the full text and metadata, and there are no widely-used guidelines about how that data should be managed or sunset aside from Twitter's prohibition on the sharing of complete datasets. Certainly something we should continue to think about how best to address... /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 9:39 AM, Stuart Shulman wrote: > There is some scholarship on the various options which have continued > to evolve over time with respect to Twitter. > https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/864 > > I agree that there is usually sufficient free, real time data to > gather from Twitter to reach saturation on most real time current > research questions. > > My personal experience with the cost and regulation of historical > Twitter access for academia is a cautionary tale. Most of what > academics want to study, and often the way they do it, violates the > clear language of the Twitter Terms of Service and also the > increasingly widespread right to be forgotten. If you are storing > spreadsheets of Twitter data that includes over time more and more > material from deleted accounts or deleted Tweets, this is problematic > from a legal perspective and raises ethical review questions > that should not be glossed over in any wikileaks fashion by journal > editors or university ethics officers. > > ~Stu > Dr. Stu Shulman U.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach Valeo FC & > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> Volunteer Coach > /*Is your player ready to give back to the game?* /Contact Coach Stu > about winter & spring 2020 volunteer efforts. > Capacidad <http://capacidadprograms.org/?page_id=13> > > > > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD > <pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>>> wrote: > > Deen makes a great point about sponsorship. I was referring to > having to > use personal funds. > > Fondly, Peter > > Peter Joseph Gloviczki, PhD he/him/his > Associate Professor of Communication > Coker University > 300 East College Avenue > Hartsville, South Carolina 29550 > 843.383.8379 > pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu> <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu <mailto:pgloviczki@coker.edu>> > > Assistant Editor, Journal of Loss and Trauma (Taylor & Francis) > Immediate Past Head, Cultural and Critical Studies Division, AEJMC > 1st Vice President, Carolinas Communication Association > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:20 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com> > <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com <mailto:dfreelon@gmail.com>>> wrote: > > > I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple > occasions. I > > disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the > > most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own > personal > > money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it. > > > > Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few > ways. > > I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I > call > > it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a > keyword[s] and > > a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on > the number > > of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum > price is a > > little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the > five-figure range, > > especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. > Also, they > > have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those > > related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" > data > > requests are not public--I've asked. > > > > Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill > out this > > form and ask about it: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application
> > > > The associated metadata are the same as provided through
the
> standard > > APIs. These can be found here: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/...
> > Language tags are included, and geographic info is
present
only when > > users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I
will
> also say > > that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as > GZIPped > > JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of
data
> is far > > too much to download manually--you'd need to automate
your
download > > pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to > > successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact
me to
> access my > > scripts. > > > > Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, > including its > > Premium API > > > (
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis )
> and > > its Enterprise API > > > (
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/ ).
> > These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward > > corporate and other well-funded clients. > > > > Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may > have > > some relevant info: > > > > >
https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re...
> > > > Best, /DEEN > > > > On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote: > > > Hello everybody, > > > > > > Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying
tweets
> from Twitter > > for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to > know which > > information is given about the tweets harvested through
the
> query (e.g. is > > language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it > isn't part > > of the query - so not a selection criterion)? > > > > > > Many thanks. > > > > > > Best wishes, > > > Sandrine > > > > > > > > > > > > Sandrine Roginsky > > > Associate Professor > > > > > > Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and > Communication > > > Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > > -- > > Deen Freelon, Ph.D. > > Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and
Media
> > Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and > Public Life > > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > > http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | > > https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ > > Schedule an appointment with me > > <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> > > _______________________________________________ > > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>> > mailing list > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers > http://aoir.org > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > > http://www.aoir.org/ > > > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:
Air-L@listserv.aoir.org>
<mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org
> mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ >
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
With regard to filtering by geography, keep in mind that the percentage of geo and place-tagged tweets continues to collapse to less than 1% now, with GPS-tagged tweets less than 0.1% of all tweets now. Note that geo and place tagged tweets have also unsurprisingly declined precipitously over the course of this year since lockdowns began: https://blog.gdeltproject.org/visualizing-twitters-evolution-2012-2020-and-h... K On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:58 AM Deen Freelon <dfreelon@gmail.com> wrote:
I have purchased tweets directly from Twitter on multiple occasions. I disagree with Dr. Gloviczki about paying research costs--some of the most rigorous research is sponsored. I wouldn't spend my own personal money on such costs, but if you've got funding, by all means use it.
Twitter allows university-affiliated users to buy data in a few ways. I've primarily used their a la carte service (that's just what I call it), where you give them a set of search criteria (e.g. a keyword[s] and a time period) and they give you a quote. Pricing is based on the number of days covered and the total volume of tweets. Their minimum price is a little over $1k US and costs can quickly run into the five-figure range, especially if you want tweets over a lengthy period of time. Also, they have been known to refuse certain data requests, especially those related to international conflict. The criteria for "acceptable" data requests are not public--I've asked.
Twitter does not advertise this service but it does exist. Fill out this form and ask about it:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise/application
The associated metadata are the same as provided through the standard APIs. These can be found here:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/v1/tweets/post-and-engage/... Language tags are included, and geographic info is present only when users opt in, which is rare (typically 3-5% of tweets). I will also say that obtaining the data once purchased is not easy--they come as GZIPped JSON files packaged in 10-minute increments. So a year of data is far too much to download manually--you'd need to automate your download pipeline. I've written code to do this, so anyone who manages to successfully buy Twitter data may feel free to contact me to access my scripts.
Twitter also offers a couple other data purchase options, including its Premium API (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/premium-apis) and its Enterprise API (https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/enterprise#/). These charge pretty steep monthly fees and are oriented more toward corporate and other well-funded clients.
Finally, here's their portal for academic researchers, which may have some relevant info:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/solutions/academic-research/products-for-re...
Best, /DEEN
On 9/10/2020 8:39 AM, Sandrine Roginsky wrote:
Hello everybody,
Help needed. Does anyone have experience with buying tweets from Twitter for research? We have a fairly specific query and would like to know which information is given about the tweets harvested through the query (e.g. is language or geographic information given for tweets, even if it isn't part of the query - so not a selection criterion)?
Many thanks.
Best wishes, Sandrine
Sandrine Roginsky Associate Professor
Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, and Communication Institute Language & Communication, PCOM / LASCO
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon, Ph.D. Associate Professor -> Hussman School of Journalism and Media Principal Researcher -> Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon <https://twitter.com/dfreelon> | https://github.com/dfreelon | https://citap.unc.edu/ Schedule an appointment with me <https://doodle.com/mm/deenfreelon/book-a-time> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
participants (9)
-
Amy Ruckes -
Dave Mee -
Deen Freelon -
kalev leetaru -
Matteo Magnani -
Peter Joseph Gloviczki PhD -
Sandrine Roginsky -
Sarah Ann Oates -
Stuart Shulman