Social media data
Table of contents
TERMS OF SERVICE AND COPYRIGHT
Review the social media platform's Terms of Service / Terms of Use.
- The terms may change, so always check the latest version.
- Find out what the terms say about, for example:
- Downloading and storing content
- Publicity or public availability of content (not all material found online is public!)
- Content sharing
- Copyright
- Automated data collection (scraping)
Exception for Text and Data Mining
- Section 13b of the Finnish Copyright Act allows for the reproduction and storage of copies of a work for the purpose of text and data mining. Under this exception, it may in certain cases be possible to deviate from the terms of use of a social media platform.
- “Text and data mining refers --- to an automated analysis technique aimed at analysing text and data in digital form to generate information.” (Translated from: Tekijänoikeuden tiedotus- ja valvontakeskus ry)
- Mining may be carried out unless the authors have reserved this right. If data mining is conducted for scientific research within a research or cultural heritage institution, rights holders cannot prohibit the mining.
- A prerequisite for data mining is lawful access to the work.
- If you are considering not complying with the platform’s terms of use based on this exception, consult your supervisor to ensure that your research methods meet the criteria of the exception.
Texts written on social media may exceed the threshold of originality. In addition, copyright protects images uploaded to social media.
- According to Section 25 of the Finnish Copyright Act, it is permissible to cite an image that has been published, i.e., lawfully made available to the public. Thus, from a copyright perspective, image citation allows the use of a legally published work in a thesis.
- For example, images from companies’ public social media accounts can generally be considered lawfully published.
- Images from public social media accounts of public figures fall into a more ambiguous area. So far, there is no legal precedent addressing the right to cite such images in theses or scientific research.
- Images from private individuals’ private social media accounts cannot be cited. In such cases, copyright issues intersect with ethical and data protection considerations. In principle, when requesting consent to participate in research—or when consent serves as the basis for processing personal data—permission to use images in a thesis may also be requested at the same time as consent.
You can find more information about terms of use and copyright in the learning material section: Rights and copyright.