Information posted by youth in online social media contexts is regularly accessed, downloaded, integrated, and analyzed by academic researchers. The practice raises significant social justice considerations for researchers including issues of representation and equitable distribution of risks and benefits. Use of this type of data for research purposes helps to ensure representation in research of the voices of youth who participate in these online contexts, at times discussing issues that are also under-represented. At the same time, youth whose data are (...) harvested are subject to the risks associated with this research, while receiving little if any direct benefit from the work. These risks include the potential loss of online social community as well as threats to participant rights and wellbeing. This paper explores the tension between the social justice benefit of representation and considerations that would suggest caution, the latter including inequitable distribution of research-related costs and benefits, and the traditional ethics concerns of participant autonomy and privacy in the context of youth participation in online discussions. In the final section, we propose guidelines and considerations for the conduct of online social media research to assist researchers to balance and respect representational and participant rights or wellbeing considerations, especially with youth. (shrink)

The goal of this project is to identify guidelines for privacy policies that children and teens can accurately interpret with relative ease. A three-pronged strategy was used to achieve this goal. First, an analysis of the relevant literature on reading was undertaken to identify the document features that affect comprehension. Second, focus groups were conducted to examine their experience and practices in the interpretation of privacy policies found on sites that have been identified as favorite kids’ sites. Based on the (...) results of the literature review and focus groups, a set of potential guidelines were identified. Finally, the efficacy of these guidelines was tested in the final phase of the research project. The result of this work is a set of 14 guidelines for the drafting of privacy policies that make a difference, by improving the comprehensibility of privacy policies encountered by Canadian children and teens as they surf the Net. (shrink)