Automated Data Extraction from Online Social Network Profiles: Unique Ethical Challenges for Researchers

As the use of online social networking (OSN) sites is increasing, data extraction from OSN profiles is providing researchers with a rich source of data. Data extraction is divided into non-automated and automated approaches. However, researchers face a variety of ethical challenges especially using automated data extraction approaches. In social networking, there has been a lack of research that looks into the unique ethical challenges of using automated data extraction compared to non-automated extraction. This article explores the history of social research ethics and the unique ethical challenges associated with using automated data extraction, as well as how these impact the researcher. The author’s review has highlighted that researchers face challenges when designing an experiment involving automated extraction from OSN profiles due to issues such as extraction methods, the speed at which the field of social media is moving and a lack of information on how to deal with ethical challenges.