How to Ethically Use Social Media Data

By Louise Alestam
03 Aug 2022

What we share on social media can be pretty revealing, personal, intimate.

And so, you’d think (hope) an industry that listens to these conversations would be careful to respect the people they’re listening to… right?

We checked. We couldn’t find any standardised or binding ethical guidelines for the social intelligence industry.

We think there should be.

For us, the central question is – how to be ethical when dealing with data that’s in the public domain? One argument is, that it’s there and so fair game.

We don’t agree. The question of consent is far too murky for that to hold much water.

So, as the saying goes, what doesn’t exist you have to create yourself.

Here it is. A checklist. A starter for 10. A set of principles to help you collect and use social media data in a way that respects people’s safety, integrity and privacy. It is based on our own data collection practices, developed and fine-tuned over many years of social media research.

Whether you are an established business or just starting out, we hope you find this useful.

Above all, we hope that you too want to make the social listening industry a positive force for change on social media.

By Louise Alestam

BusinessDataHuman BehaviourLeadership

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