follow up on research ethics implications of Twitter's 'general amnesty'

14 May 2024 - kudos:

This is just a few words to say that this post that I wrote back in December 2022 has suddenly become relevant. In short, some of my recent work has been on an online Mormon community that has some overlaps with the far-right. In between my collection of the data and eventual publication of our various articles, my co-author and I have noted some prominent accounts’ being suspended from Twitter. Because we work hard to not use identifiable quotes in our writing, and because of Elon Musk’s decision to unsuspend nearly all suspended accounts after taking the platform over, I’ve been checking accounts I knew to previously be suspended as we work on a new manuscript.

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'TikTok Quietly Curtails Data Tool Used by Critics - The New York Times'

8 January 2024 - kudos:

Don’t love it when platforms shut down tools because they don’t like outside research. Gift Link link to “TikTok Quietly Curtails Data Tool Used by Critics - The New York Times”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Major critic of X sues after being banned from platform | Ars Technica'

1 November 2023 - kudos:

The headline obscures something important—that this is about research, access to data, and Terms of Service. Worrying stuff. link to “Major critic of X sues after being banned from platform | Ars Technica”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Twitter’s $42,000-per-Month API Prices Out Nearly Everyone | WIRED'

10 March 2023 - kudos:

RIP my Twitter research. Glad I have other irons in the fire… link to ‘Twitter’s $42,000-per-Month API Prices Out Nearly Everyone | WIRED’

three grumpy observations from a Twitter researcher on requests for 'quote toots'

3 January 2023 - kudos:

Over the past several weeks, I’ve noticed a lot of conversations about Mastodon’s lack of a feature equivalent to Twitter’s “quote tweets.” To be honest, I don’t really care about the lack of a “quote toot” feature, and I’ve done my best to steer clear of these conversations (though I did note while writing this post that it caught the eye of Mastodon’s founder in a big way). I gather that these conversations been around for a while, but I get the sense from my own feeds that there’s been a notable recent uptick.

unexpected research ethics implications of Twitter's 'general amnesty' for suspended accounts

5 December 2022 - kudos:

For over three years now, I’ve been getting increasingly involved with research projects that involve the online far right in one way or another. One of the most interesting ways that I’ve developed as a researcher during this time is having to think through in greater detail my commitments to research ethics. Because my research typically focuses on public social media data, I am rarely required to obtain informed consent from those whom I study.

a culmination of previous work, or a steppingstone for the future?

31 May 2022 - kudos:

Like in many PhD programs, my comprehensive exams included an element that was intended to help me prepare for my dissertation proposal, dissertation, and dissertation defense. Building off of my research interests and experiences up to that point, my advisor wrote me a lengthy question asking me to define and describe simulation games—the intent, of course, being that at least some of this could be worked into a literature review for a dissertation.