Who is responsible for Twitter data?
Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2025 8:40 am
Joseph AllenIn this five-part mini series, Joe Allen gets us thinking about the challenges and ethical implications of using Twitter data.
This is part four of a five-part series on the ease and ethics of utilising Twitter data, based on a talk I gave at the NCRM Research Methods e-Festival. Today I’m also guest blogging over on the University of Manchester’s Research IT blog, as their post on ‘Analysing Tweets from Twitter’ partly inspired this mini series, so make sure you check out the Research IT blog as well!
In the last post, I discussed the ethical review process for academic research, and how that might help bridge some of the gaps in responsibility in current processes relating to the ethical use of social media data. In this post, I’ll be reflecting on who should hold responsibility for overseeing and ensuring the ethical use of Twitter data.
A version of the Twitter icon (a bright blue bird on a darker blue square)
Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
Q10: How responsible are each of the austria rcs data following groups in making sure Twitter users and their data is safe?
In asking my audience this question, I wanted to find out how much responsibility certain groups were seen as having when it came to protecting their Twitter data:
Parents
Schools
The User
Twitter
The Government
Academic Institutions
Industry
One response might be that parents and schools are responsible for raising the next generation of social media users, and are therefore responsible for encouraging safe use of online data. Digital hygiene is part of the curriculum at many schools in the UK, despite many adults not understanding the importance of it.
This is part four of a five-part series on the ease and ethics of utilising Twitter data, based on a talk I gave at the NCRM Research Methods e-Festival. Today I’m also guest blogging over on the University of Manchester’s Research IT blog, as their post on ‘Analysing Tweets from Twitter’ partly inspired this mini series, so make sure you check out the Research IT blog as well!
In the last post, I discussed the ethical review process for academic research, and how that might help bridge some of the gaps in responsibility in current processes relating to the ethical use of social media data. In this post, I’ll be reflecting on who should hold responsibility for overseeing and ensuring the ethical use of Twitter data.
A version of the Twitter icon (a bright blue bird on a darker blue square)
Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
Q10: How responsible are each of the austria rcs data following groups in making sure Twitter users and their data is safe?
In asking my audience this question, I wanted to find out how much responsibility certain groups were seen as having when it came to protecting their Twitter data:
Parents
Schools
The User
The Government
Academic Institutions
Industry
One response might be that parents and schools are responsible for raising the next generation of social media users, and are therefore responsible for encouraging safe use of online data. Digital hygiene is part of the curriculum at many schools in the UK, despite many adults not understanding the importance of it.