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Online Research Ethics in High-Risk Places: Facebook and the Flag Protests in Northern Ireland

Online Research Ethics in High-Risk Places: Facebook and the Flag Protests in Northern Ireland. Paul Reilly University of Leicester Filippo Trevisan American University, Washington DC. ‘ Streets ’ and ‘ screens ’ : Local contexts at the centre of online protest.

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Online Research Ethics in High-Risk Places: Facebook and the Flag Protests in Northern Ireland

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  1. Online Research Ethics in High-Risk Places: Facebook and the Flag Protests in Northern Ireland Paul Reilly University of Leicester Filippo Trevisan American University, Washington DC

  2. ‘Streets’ and ‘screens’: Local contexts at the centre of online protest

  3. Towards a typology of ‘High-Risk’ places for social media research Ethical concerns arise from the relationship between online protest and local contexts in: • Non-democratic and repressive regimes (e.g. Russia; Turkey) • Failed states (e.g. Egypt) • Divided societies (e.g. Northern Ireland) • Crisis situations and civil unrest within liberal democracies (e.g. London riots)

  4. Ethical dilemmas in online research conducted in ‘high-risk’ places Two ‘ethical bottlenecks’: • Research design and data collection: • Semi-public nature of Facebook pages: can comments be used without consent of authors? • Presentation of results: • Inadvertent exposure of individuals could contribute to surveillance by authorities; • Personal Identifiable Information (PII) could potentially lead to physical harm to unaware participants.

  5. Background: Union Flag Protests (December 2012-present) • On 3rd December 2012, Belfast City Council voted in favour of a new protocol that would see the union flag fly over City Hall on 18 designated days rather than all-year round. • This prompted a loyalist campaign of ‘flag protests’ that disrupted rush hour traffic in towns and cities across Northern Ireland, culminating in rioting in east and north Belfast in January 2013. • Perception that working class loyalists had not experienced ‘peace dividend’and that they lacked effective political representation (INTERCOMM & Byrne, 2013; Nolan et al, 2015) • PSNI accused of being heavy-handed towards protesters and much criticism of biased media coverage of protests

  6. Loyalist Facebook pages are said to have played a key role in the organisation of street protests

  7. Research Questions: • RQ1: What type of mobilising information was available on the Loyalist Peaceful Protest Updater page? • RQ2: To what extent did the commentators contextualise the flag protests by referring to loyalist disillusionment with the peace process? • RQ3: To what extent did the commentators perceive the policing of the protests to be ‘heavy-handed? A critical thematic analysis of 2701 comments posted on the page during January 2013 was conducted in order to explore these issues

  8. Developing an ethical stance for study of flag protest Facebook pages: • Not in public interest to ‘name and shame’ unaware participants- reputational harm, prosecution • Direct quotes to be used only if they could not be easily located using search engine • Paraphrasing e.g. ‘British flag should fly in British country’ – important not to distort voices of loyalists who felt marginalised by news media • Personal identifiable Information removed with exception of public figures e.g. journalists, politicians • Word clouds to visualise most frequently occurring words

  9. Most frequently occurring words on Loyalist Peaceful Protest Updater (Jan 2013)

  10. Key Research Findings • There appeared to be a lack of consensus in relation to the tactics adopted by the flag protest movement • ‘Cyber loyalists’ were turning away from formal politics and the PSNI - felt left behind by the peace process. • The page administrators frequently warned users that they would not tolerate so-called ‘republican trolling’ and were aware that the site was being monitored by the PSNI and the media • Evidence to support flag protest leader Jamie Bryson’s claim that “it didn't’t help us in the slightest”?

  11. Conclusion • Researchers operating in high-risk places should focus on what is said online rather than who is responsible for saying it • Word clouds and paraphrasing can convey key themes from social media datasets without exposing unaware participants to potential harm • In case of Flag Protest pages, there was an increasing awareness of the surveillance of social media e.g. journalists, police- demonstrating need for ethical research practices in high-risk places?

  12. Dr Paul Reilly Email: pr93@le.ac.uk  Twitter: @pauljreilly www.pauljreillydot.com Dr Filippo Trevisan Email: trevisan@american.edu  Twitter: @filippotrevisan www.filippotrevisan.net

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