"We Aren't All Going to Be on the Same Page about Ethics": Ethical Practices and Challenges in Research on Digital and Social Media

Defining ethical practices for research using data from digital and social media communities is an ongoing challenge. This paper reports on interviews with digital and social media researchers to investigate the challenges they experienced when collecting, managing, and analyzing online data. Analysis of the interviews reveals a diverse set of ethical challenges that push at the boundaries of existing research ethics guidance. The interview data also describes existing practices for navigating ethical quandaries, and documents resources that help researchers meet ethical challenges. The analysis of the data points to opportunities for review boards and ethics researchers as well as new debates to undertake as a community.