Would you share your Fediverse data with researchers?
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Michael Vogel last edited by
So, in my mind, "Would you share your Fediverse data with researchers?" implies that you have agency to share or not, and that you can consent or not.
But I guess you're reading it a different way.
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@z428 Why don't you trust ActivityPub with private data? It's as good as email.
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@evan At first, I don't trust e-mail with really "private" data either, due to its very nature (store-and-forward, unencrypted metadata, encryption mainly "just" done using PGP/GPG with long-lived private keys closely tied to my identity).
Plus, I think these things don't really compare. E-mail, by default, has access control and whatever is in _my_ mailbox is supposed to be in _my_ mailbox. With maybe the exception of mailing lists, I usually don't have such a thing as an e-mail sent out to a "random public" - it's always addressing one specific recipient and usually supposed to end up in this persons very inbox invisible to someone else. Fediverse, to me, seems more like "the old WWW" here where a lot of things are public by default and anything to reduce visibility is somewhat difficult to do right on top.
Adding to that, for ActivityPub things seem slightly more complex depending on how various implementations handle things. In example, I've seen a bunch of situations in which "private" or "follower-only" messages have made it to public views in Friendica. Not sure whether these issues arising from loopholes or weaknesses in ActivityPub as a spec or "just" flaws in individual implementations, yet this makes me very very cautious how to make sure "private" messages actually remain "private".
cc @heluecht
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whither and d'yereplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan depends on whether we mean academic research or corporate data scientists
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Evan Prodromoureplied to whither and d'ye last edited by
@squinky would you say yes to either?
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Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝replied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan That is really vague tbf. What data? the data that's already public?
yes. But only if it's for academic non-commercial research
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝 last edited by
@thibaultmol it's a hypothetical question. The point is for you to think about what data you would share under what conditions.
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@evan academic researcher here. I'd really love to be involved in the researching of the Fediverse. What's being planned by swf? Data, interviews, UX, all of it hopefully. Sign me up.
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@evan I actually just started a research project about environmental stewardship and social media. We are getting data from insta, fb, yt, tiktok & Twitter but we did not consider the fediverse. Too few users + hard to get consent.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
Really great results. I'm qualified yes; I have been part of academic research projects before and I'd be ok with doing one here if I felt like my privacy would be preserved and I supported the topic of study.
Lots of good responses in the comments. Some blanket statements by people saying they would not permit others to participate in research on the Fediverse, which is kind of overstepping.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
Many people assumed either nonconsensual or commercial research or both, which doesn't follow from the question for me, but I understand why people are vigilant.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
An interesting question came up about consent of connected people -- social graph or reactions to content, for example. I'm interested and I am going to investigate how it works for social networks.
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Lawrence Pritchard Waterhousereplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan For what it's worth: I think you worded it well. People are prone to vigorous knee-jerk reactions, and I can't blame 'em (Being prone to those myself, especially in areas where ethics are concerned)
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse last edited by
@lpwaterhouse I also was part of the launch of a new non-profit foundation, https://socialwebfoundation.org/ , this week. I think people are feeling worried about the SWF's purpose, so they interpreted the question really negatively.
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@Transflux Awesome! Thanks for the reply.
One thing I'm trying to figure out is how researchers deal with consent of creators of incidental content -- for example, if you analyse the primary subject's image post, analysing the "likes" of that post.
As far as I can tell, it's usually aggregated and/or anonymized, but researchers don't seek consent from secondary subjects. Is that about right?
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@DrPen Oh, cool! We've talked to a few researchers about the topic. It'd be great to talk more; send me a DM!
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Brian Hawthornereplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan @JasonPester I’ve noticed this sort of assumption in many polls here, mostly posted by people who appear to be allistic. Many autists may not make the same inferences regarding metaphor or implications. Given the high proportion of autistic people and people for whom English is not their first language here in the Fediverse, my recommendation is to avoid wording things in a way that requires people to try to intuit your intentions.
In this case, if consent is intended, then it’s probably best to mention it in the wording: “Would you consent to sharing your…”
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Brian Hawthorne last edited by
@bhawthorne @JasonPester thanks for the note.