Tracing controversies in hacker communities: ethical considerations for internet research

This paper reflects on the ethics of internet research on community controversies. Specifically, it focuses on controversies concerning gendered, social interaction in hacking communities. It addresses the question how internet researchers should treat and represent content that individuals controversially discussed online. While many internet sources are likewise technically public, they may yet suggest distinct privacy expectations on the part of involved individuals. In internet research, ethical decision-making regarding which online primary sources may be, e.g., referenced and quoted or require anonymisation is still ambiguous and contested. Instead of generalisable rules, the context dependence of internet research ethics has been frequently stressed. Given this ambiguity, the paper elaborates on ethical decisions and their implications by exploring the case of a controversial hackerspaces.org mailing list debate. In tracing data across different platforms, it analyses the emerging ethico-methodological challenges

“It’s a terrible way to go to work:” what 70 million readers’ comments on the Guardian revealed about hostility to women and minorities online

In 2006, the Guardian opened many of its articles to readers’ comments to encourage a “conversation” between journalists and their readers. Readers responded enthusiastically, and by 2016 they had posted 70 million comments on the site. However, from the outset many journalists complained about the quality and tone of comments. Female and BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) journalists in particular complained that they were subject to more abuse than their male, white counterparts. This study finds prima facie evidence to support the journalists’ claims. Using comments that had been blocked by moderators as a proxy for abuse and dismissive trolling, it was found that articles written by women did attract a higher percentage of blocked comments than those written by men, regardless of the subject of the article; this effect was heightened when the articles ran in a particularly male-dominated section of the site. There was also evidence that articles written by BAME writers attracted disproportionate levels of blocked comments, even though the research was not designed to reveal this. Preliminary research findings were published in the Guardian and readers were invited to comment on them. Guardian journalists’ experiences of comments were also surveyed. Both sets of responses are analysed here, in order to explore the contested nature of online abuse in an online news media environment, and to evaluate the potential of comments to “democratise” journalism

A history of newswork on Wikipedia

Wikipedia’s coverage of current events blurs the boundaries of what it means to be an encyclopedia. Drawing on Gieyrn’s concept of “boundary work”, this paper explores how Wiki-pedia’s response to the 9/11 attacks expanded the role of the encyclopedia to include newswork, excluded content like the 9/11 Memorial Wiki that became problematic following this expansion, and legitimized these changes through the adop-tion of news-related policies and routines like promoting ”In the News”content on the homepage. However, a second case exploring WikiNews illustrates the pitfalls of misappropriat-ing professional newswork norms as well as the challenges of sustaining online communities. These cases illuminate the social construction of new technologies as they confront the boundaries of traditional professional identities and also re-veal how newswork is changing in response to new forms of organizing enabled by these technologies