Community-Driven Models for Research on Social Platforms

This SIG will engage CSCW researchers in a collaborative discussion on the use of UGC from social platforms for academic research. In recent years, both the importance and difficulty of accessing such data for scientific inquiry have increased. Drawing on early experiences from Reddit's 'Reddit for Researchers' data-sharing initiative, this session will: (1) identify key directions in social computing research that such initiatives can support, (2) enumerate ethical and user safety concerns which must be addressed, and (3) ideate governance models to enable community-driven review of research data requests. Participants will inform the design of a more inclusive and effective research environment for the study of social platforms, better bridging the gap between industry and academia.