Ethical Issues in Internet Research and Proposed Solutions

Today, a significant portion of research on people and events is conducted by collecting data over the Internet. Internet research is a field of study where the internet is used both as a social phenomenon and as a tool and research area. Researchers encounter different methodological, logistical, and ethical problems depending on how the internet plays a role in their research or how it is conceptualized. Initially, the "Internet" was defined as a network that enabled decentralized information transfer between computers. However, over time, this term has become a broad umbrella covering many technologies, devices, usage patterns, and social spaces.

On the other hand, research ethics is based on fundamental principles such as respect for human dignity, autonomy, safety, and rights. These principles are included in international documents and declarations (e.g., the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Nuremberg Code). Initially used in the field of medicine, these ethical rules have gradually been adapted to other disciplines and research methods. Ethical evaluations are conducted at every stage of research. It is possible to classify these evaluations under four main headings. 

1. Vulnerability and Protection: The more vulnerable the research participants or community, the greater the researcher's responsibility to protect them.

2. Context of Harm: The concept of harm varies according to context and should be evaluated with situation-specific practical judgments rather than a universal standard (Aristotle's concept of "phronesis").

3. Digital Data and Human Relationship: Digital information is linked to individuals at some point. Therefore, even studies that do not contain personal data should be handled within the framework of ethical rules regarding human participants.

4. Balance of Rights and Research: Researchers must strike a balance between the rights of participants and the benefits the research will provide to society. However, in some cases, the rights of participants may take precedence over the benefits of the research.

Ethical issues can arise at every stage of the research process; therefore, researchers should make ethical decisions by consulting their colleagues, ethics committees, people knowledgeable about the context, and existing laws. We usually think that we have handled the ethical issue after obtaining an ethics committee report at the beginning of the research, but the point to be noted here is that ethical decisions should be reviewed not at a single stage, but at every stage, including the planning, execution, analysis, and sharing of the results of the research. 

Research conducted on the Internet is mostly related to people's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. For this reason, the concept of "human subject," which we often hear in research, has been a controversial concept because it is evaluated differently in different scientific fields. Many regulatory bodies have established different levels of ethics committee review based on the idea that some research should be excluded from review or require limited review. But unfortunately, the concept of "human subject" does not provide a good fit for defining internet-based research environments. Researchers working in the field of ethics argue that the concept of "human subject" should be replaced by other terms such as "harm," "vulnerability," and "personally identifiable information." 

This is because definitions and expectations of individual and cultural privacy are ambiguous, controversial, and changeable. What people care about most in the media is ensuring the appropriate flow of information. Today, data content has surpassed the human element and become more important. The Internet has complicated the concept of personality. "Thanks to" advanced statistical modeling, the anonymization of personal information in data sets cannot prevent individuals from being identifiable. Researchers must balance ethical principles and legal requirements with context-specific models. A balance must be struck between predicted ethical outcomes and ethical issues that arise during the research process. Researchers must determine how to balance contextual requirements with disciplinary, institutional, legal, cultural, or other constraints.

Unless these are done, it is inevitable that people's personal data on the Internet will continue to be exploited.