Current Practices in Social Media Data Sharing between Researchers

The next WebSci 2016 presenters are Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda and Katrin Weller, who argue that it is necessary to address the digital divides in data accessibility in social media research. They interviewed a large number of social media researchers, and what emerges from this work is that much data sharing is already taking place, but under varying circumstances.

From a methodological point of view, how can we document such sharing to ensure reproducibility? Legally, how can we make such sharing practices sustainable and non-infringing? Ethically, how can we ensure that such data sharing does no harm and lives up to the privacy expectations of users?

Current practices fall into a number of categories. There is a "grey market" of data being shared amongst colleagues, often on request; some data are placed on researchers' personal or professional Websites; some are available from social media providers themselves; some constitute project-based of thematic collections; some are shared at conferences or through journals; and some are available in professional, institutional archives. Each of these can be rated on a number of dimensions, including the retrievability, the documentation and standards adherence, and the long-term availability of such resources.

There is a clear trade-off here between ensuring the reproducibility of scientific results and protecting the privacy of social media users. What needs to happen in the scientific community to address this is that researchers better document their practices; that institutions develop better guidelines; that publishers and conference organisers develop better mechanisms for ensuring reproducibility; and that research associations develop a better dialogue with social media providers to address these issues.

The next step here could be to discuss data sharing practices more publicly and more fully in scientific venues.