This anonymity issue is one that arises quite a lot with Wikipedia and the
WWW and big data generally. Just because the data is public and can be
aggregated and presented in all sorts of interesting ways, there are those
who would argue that it is OK to identify individuals because none of the
information was "secret". But nonetheless many people live a quiet life, do
not run for public office or engage in activities that would legitimately be
a matter "in the public interest" even from a journalist's perspective. And
even journalists don't always report everything they could; there are codes
of practice in most countries in relation to coverage of certain kinds of
events (e.g. in Australia, the suicide of an ordinary person will not be
reported). Traditionally in research we expect research subjects to be
accorded the right to their privacy and hence anonymity in the reporting of
data. Personally I don't see any reason to deviate from that in relation to
research findings, no matter what the source of the data, and I think that
practice would be expected in most research publishing.

 

I think the old-fashioned principle "do unto others as you would have them
do unto you" applies.

 

Kerry

 

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