Abstract
Social media play an increasingly significant role in activist and social movements around the globe. Archiving social media is a relatively new phenomenon and an area which needs greater clarity, understanding and uniformity. When it comes to archiving and cataloguing sensitive social media collections, such as personal abortion stories, the process is even more ambiguous. The campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment (a constitutional ban on abortion) in Ireland saw many such stories shared through online media, particularly in the lead-up to the 2018 referendum. Using the ‘In Her Shoes: Women of the Eighth’ Facebook dataset as a case study, this article will explore the ethical issues of archiving sensitive data from Facebook. It will describe challenges to archiving social media data, incorporating issues such as copyright and user consent to archiving. Many stories in the collection covered sensitive issues such as intimate partner violence, suicide because of unplanned pregnancy and attempts to bring on miscarriage by harmful and dangerous means. We outline some of the actions we undertook to address these challenges, including: developing a Stakeholder Advisory Forum, publishing an Ethical Protocol, developing a self-care protocol for researchers, and establishing a Notice and Action Policy. We suggest these actions will contribute to a best-practice framework for archiving sensitive social media data.
Recommended Citation
GRIMES, LORRAINE Dr; Cassidy, Kathryn Dr; Dias, Murilo; Lanigan, Clare; O'Carroll, Aileen Dr; and Singhvi, Preetam
(2023)
"Archiving “sensitive” social media data: ‘In Her Shoes’, a case study,"
Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies: Vol. 10, Article 19.
Available at:
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol10/iss1/19