The retraction of a paper looking at posts in a Reddit subforum about mental illness has once again raised questions about informed consent in research using public data.
To study the experience of receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a U.K.-based team of researchers collected posts from the Reddit subforum r/schizophrenia, which is dedicated to discussing the disorder. They analyzed and anonymized the data, and published their findings in June 2024 in Current Psychology, a Springer Nature journal.
The paper prompted backlash on X in the subsequent months, and in the Reddit community used for the study. People on the subreddit were concerned about the lack of consent, potential lack of anonymity, and the hypocrisy of discussing ethics in the paper while not seeking consent, a moderator of that subreddit who goes by the handle Empty_Insight told Retraction Watch.
Continue reading Do you need informed consent to study public posts on social media?