“We find the following principles to be fundamental to an ethical approach to internet research:
- The greater the vulnerability of the community / author / participant, the greater the obligation of the researcher to protect the community / author / participant.
- Because ‘harm’ is defined contextually, ethical principles are more likely to be understood inductively rather than applied universally. That is, rather than one-size-fits-all pronouncements, ethical decision-making is best approached through the application of practical judgment attentive to the specific context (what Aristotle identified as phronesis).
- Because all digital information at some point involves individual persons, consideration of principles related to research on human subjects may be necessary even if it is not immediately apparent how and where persons are involved in the research data.
- When making ethical decisions, researchers must balance the rights of subjects (as authors, as research participants, as people) with the social benefits of research and researchers’ rights to conduct research. In different contexts the rights of subjects may outweigh the benefits of research.
- Ethical issues may arise and need to be addressed during all steps of the research process, from planning, research conduct, publication, and dissemination.
- Ethical decision-making is a deliberative process, and researchers should consult as many people and resources as possible in this process, including fellow researchers, people participating in or familiar with contexts/sites being studied, research review boards, ethics guidelines, published scholarship (within one’s discipline but also in other disciplines), and, where applicable, legal precedent.”
— “Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (V 2.0),” Markham & Buchanan