Ethical considerations in social media analytics in the context of migration: lessons learned from a Horizon 2020 project

Abstract

The ubiquitous use of social platforms across the globe makes them attractive options for investigating social phenomena including migration. However, the use of social media data raises several crucial ethical issues around the areas of informed consent, anonymity and profiling of individuals, which are particularly sensitive when looking at a population such as migrants, which is often considered as ‘vulnerable’. In this paper, we discuss how the opportunities and challenges related to social media research in the context of migration impact on the development of large-scale scientific projects. Building on the EU-funded research project PERCEPTIONS, we explore the concrete challenges experienced in such projects regarding profiling, informed consent, bias, data sharing and ethical approval procedures, as well as the strategies used to mitigate them. We draw from lessons learned in this project to discuss implications and recommendations to researchers, funders and university ethics review panels. This paper contributes to the growing discussion on the ethical challenges associated with big social data research projects on migration by highlighting concrete aspects stakeholders should be looking for and questioning when involved in such large-scale scientific projects where collaboration, data sharing and transformation and practicalities are of importance.

The DECIDE Framework: Describing Ethical Choices in Digital-Behavioral-Data Explorations

“…As a result, dynamic issues relating to digital methods and data can be overlooked, and ethical considerations that arise during or even after the research has been completed may not be given due attention by the authors or institutional review boards. When exploring the use of social media data to study migrant activity, one project highlighted the utility of continuing ethical discussions beyond the project initiation, as ethical dilemmas and questions arose throughout the project duration (Mahoney et al 2022) Existing processes have also been criticized for being highly restrictive and bureaucratic (Henderson & Esposito, 2019;Robson & Maier, 2018), which can sometimes result in conditions that promote unethical research practices (e.g., Parsell, 2014) as well as "ethics creep"where the scrutiny of review boards fosters institutionalized distrust and undermines the professional competence and responsibility that researchers will act ethically (Haggerty, 2004). These issues can be exacerbated when using new technologies because researchers and ethics committees may lack the relevant knowledge, expertise, and experience of collecting, analyzing, and storing digital data (Adjerid & Kelley, 2018;Metzler et al, 2016).…”

Human journeys in the digital age: Advances and challenges in Digital Historical Migration Studies

“…Current research is exploring and beginning to address these challenges. Reflecting on their work on PERCEPTIONS, a project identifying public narratives on Europe and migration to Europe by analyzing social media data, Mahoney et al (2022) outline a number of methods used to navigate the ethical tensions of their work. For example, in dealing with the issue of informed consent, the authors made the decision to use only explicitly public material where authors have no expectations of privacy (hence using only Twitter data).…”

“…For example, in dealing with the issue of informed consent, the authors made the decision to use only explicitly public material where authors have no expectations of privacy (hence using only Twitter data). The authors also approached the existing power dynamics and political categories around migration with care, avoiding "profiling" individuals by identifying and labeling them as migrants, and only identifying individuals with over 10,000 followers (Mahoney et al, 2022). Concerning the protection and privacy of data, they developed principles around data sharing between partners: only those project partners deemed able to provide adequate data protection (in line with General Data Protection Regulation) were responsible for data processing, and partners such as law enforcement were not given access to raw data (Mahoney et al, 2022, p. 232-234).…”

Collecting migrants' Facebook posts: Accounting for ethical measures in a text-as-data approach

“…Quantitative studies based on migrants' digital traces generate different problems relating to “profiling, informed consent, data sharing processes and ethical approval and data management procedures” (Mahoney et al, 2022b , p. 230). As there are fewer studies about migration applying topic modeling to social media data created by migrants, there are correspondingly fewer analyses on the ethics of collecting and analyzing such quantitative data.…”

“…As there are fewer studies about migration applying topic modeling to social media data created by migrants, there are correspondingly fewer analyses on the ethics of collecting and analyzing such quantitative data. Mahoney et al ( 2022b , p. 232) analyzed large textual datasets from migrants on Twitter, collecting only “explicitly public social media data”. They contend that ethical issues of such data collection become more intricate the more social media develops and the identification of public and private spaces becomes more complex (Idem, p. 235).…”