4 ms·

Experiments without informed consent. While Tinder might have something in their T&C which requires that they're allowed to look at the data, it isn't ethical f

Experiments without informed consent. While Tinder might have something in their T&C which requires that they're allowed to look at the data, it isn't ethical for third parties to scrape and use that same data without informed consent. Interestingly though, I wouldn't think the same of an instagram scrape. Probably because insta is public by design, while tinder is expected to be local, requires a login and ostensibly is for the purpose of looking for companionship.

noobermin 9y ago
At the bottom of the article, Tinder claimed he violated their TOS.
denzil_correa 9y ago
> Probably because insta is public by design There's a difference between public and public domain. Just because something is public, doesn't mean you are free to use it as you wish. You may still require permission to use it for tasks beyond the originally intended purpose.
- alexc05 9y ago
  See, I agree and disagree with that. People on tinder are probably reasonably expecting that their pictures are used for meeting up with locals for the purposes of dating. The debate about whether this is a reasonable expectation isn't really what I'm on about. (Obviously, as techie types, we have a different understanding of how private this stuff really is) On instagram, it is a broadcasting and publishing platform and it is very clear that by posting a photo, on a non-private-account the photo can be seen and generally browsed by others. A researcher who conducts a study of "looking at" 400k public instagram photos is doing a different thing than spoofing their location and auto-swiping through 400k lonely hearts. Obviously people disagree with this since I'm getting downvotes for my position. This is certainly my opinion But I do feel like running a study against one isn't unethical while the other is. Of course, that should be caveated that "republishing" the scraped data is unreasonable in both cases (IMO). I also think things like this artist http://fortune.com/2015/05/26/instagram-copyright-art/ http://fortune.com/2015/05/26/instagram-copyright-art/ are reprehensible... but that's art, not science and doesn't actually have the same expectation to abide by ethical principles.
  - denzil_correa 9y ago
    > On instagram, it is a broadcasting and publishing platform and it is very clear that by posting a photo, on a non-private-account the photo can be seen and generally browsed by others. The keyword is published for "browsing" and other things which are codified. You can't use it for mining data without consent.

noobermin 9y ago

At the bottom of the article, Tinder claimed he violated their TOS.

denzil_correa 9y ago

> Probably because insta is public by design There's a difference between public and public domain. Just because something is public, doesn't mean you are free to use it as you wish. You may still require permission to use it for tasks beyond the originally intended purpose.

alexc05 9y ago
See, I agree and disagree with that. People on tinder are probably reasonably expecting that their pictures are used for meeting up with locals for the purposes of dating. The debate about whether this is a reasonable expectation isn't really what I'm on about. (Obviously, as techie types, we have a different understanding of how private this stuff really is) On instagram, it is a broadcasting and publishing platform and it is very clear that by posting a photo, on a non-private-account the photo can be seen and generally browsed by others. A researcher who conducts a study of "looking at" 400k public instagram photos is doing a different thing than spoofing their location and auto-swiping through 400k lonely hearts. Obviously people disagree with this since I'm getting downvotes for my position. This is certainly my opinion But I do feel like running a study against one isn't unethical while the other is. Of course, that should be caveated that "republishing" the scraped data is unreasonable in both cases (IMO). I also think things like this artist http://fortune.com/2015/05/26/instagram-copyright-art/ http://fortune.com/2015/05/26/instagram-copyright-art/ are reprehensible... but that's art, not science and doesn't actually have the same expectation to abide by ethical principles.
- denzil_correa 9y ago
  > On instagram, it is a broadcasting and publishing platform and it is very clear that by posting a photo, on a non-private-account the photo can be seen and generally browsed by others. The keyword is published for "browsing" and other things which are codified. You can't use it for mining data without consent.