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The Ethics of Online Social Network Forensics

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E-Life: Web-Enabled Convergence of Commerce, Work, and Social Life (WEB 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 258))

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Abstract

Online social networks (OLSNs) are electronically-based social milieux where individuals gather virtually to socialize. The behavior and characteristics of these networks can provide evidence relevant for detecting and prosecuting policy violations, crimes, terrorist activities, subversive political movements, etc. Some existing forensics methods and tools are useful for such investigations. Further, forensics researchers are developing new methods and tools specifically for investigating and examining online social networks. While the privacy rights of individuals are widely respected, the privacy rights of social groups are less well developed. In the current development of OLSNs and computer forensics, the compromise of group privacy may lead to the violation of individual privacy. This paper examines the ethics regarding forensics examinations of online social networks. As with individual privacy, ethical tensions exist in social group privacy between the privacy rights that can be afforded to the membership, and the rights of institutions to detect and govern conspiracies to subversion, crimes, discrimination, etc.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of MSIS, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA

    Jongwoo Kim

  2. Department of CIS, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Richard Baskerville

  3. School of Science and Technology, Georgia Gwinnett College, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Yi Ding

Authors
  1. Jongwoo Kim
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  2. Richard Baskerville
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  3. Yi Ding
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Correspondence to Jongwoo Kim .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Decision and Information Sciences, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Vijayan Sugumaran

  2. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA

    Victoria Yoon

  3. Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA

    Michael J. Shaw

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Kim, J., Baskerville, R., Ding, Y. (2016). The Ethics of Online Social Network Forensics. In: Sugumaran, V., Yoon, V., Shaw, M. (eds) E-Life: Web-Enabled Convergence of Commerce, Work, and Social Life. WEB 2015. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 258. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45408-5_9

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