IRE project member Michael Zimmer has started a conversation at his blog on the question "Is it Ethical to Harvest Public Twitter Accounts without Consent?":

While participating in the workshop on Revisiting Research Ethics in the Facebook Era: Challenges in Emerging CSCW Research, the question arose as to whether it was ethical for researchers to follow and systematically capture public Twitter streams without first obtaining specific, informed consent by the subjects. Many in the room felt that consent was not necessary since the tweets are public, a conscious choice made by the user to allow the whole world see her activity. In short, by not restricting access to one's account, there is no expectation of privacy.

 

I argued, however, that we cannot be so quick to presume the expectations of potential research subjects. Yes, setting one's Twitter stream to public does mean that anyone can search for you, follow you, and view your activity. However, there is a reasonable expectation that one's tweet stream will be "practically obscure" within the thousands (if not millions) of tweets similarly publicly viewable. Yes, the subject has consented to making her tweets visible to those who take the time and energy to seek her out, those who have a genuine interest to connect and view her activity through this social network.

But she did not automatically consent, I argue, to having her tweet stream systematically followed, harvested, archived, and mined by researchers (no matter the positive intent of such research). That is not what is expected when making a Twitter account public, and it is my opinion that researchers should seek consent prior to capturing and using this data.

There is an extensive debate on Zimmer's blog, centering on whether public tweets are public communications, not requiring any additional consent or IRB review, or whether Twitter-based research is dealing with "human subjects" that does require strict scrutiny, and whether making one's tweets public is de facto allowing them to be used for any purpose.

There are quite a number of comments on his blog -- what do IRE readers think?

[image from TPorter2006]

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• |02-17-2011- 15:33:56 Gunther Eysenbach - Twitter & ethics
  Oh, please, give me a break.
  I would be the last to argue that everything on the Internet is "public" (in fact, I was one of the first pointing out that it is not, see our 2001 paper in the BMJ at http://www.bmj.com/content/323/7321/1103.full), BUT TWITTER IS PUBLIC - NO QUESTION ABOUT IT.
  
  Tweets (from the public stream) are like to be treated like blogs (microblogs) and webpages - PUBLIC. No consent required for analyzing them, unless of course they are DMs (which are like emails - confidential) or sent to your "followers only". The Twitter terms of use are VERY clear in this:
  
  "Our Services are primarily designed to help you share information with the world. Most of the information you provide to us is information you are asking us to make public. This includes not only the messages you Tweet and the metadata provided with Tweets, such as when you Tweeted, but also the lists you create, the people you follow, the Tweets you mark as favorites or Retweet and m...
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