Navigating psychological ethics in shared multi-user online environments

This chapter affords us the opportunity to draw from our experience as researchers of online identities, support, and coping to explore how decisions about public and private spaces, informed consent, and anonymity are addressed in online environments containing several layers of text, image, and audio-visual input from multiple sources across multiple, linked sites. It considers the nature of online data itself: Is it text-based or person-based? This has a direct bearing on a more ethically focused question: Is online data public or private? It comprises a seemingly more basic question: What do the relevant professional bodies have to say about the ethics of online research? The authors of the chapter study, among other things, issues of support and identity in online communities for young people who engage in various forms of self-harm, as well as forums for people recovering from or trying to maintain eating disordered behaviour.