[tor-project] Fwd: Launching Ethics Guidelines

[Tom Ritter]

I saw https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2015SummerDevMeeting/ResearchEthicsNotes
and it notes "Create thread on tor-dev."  I couldn't find that thread.

But since the below is relevant for this, I figured I'd forward it here.

He says not to be intimidated by the length of the document, but I am
anyway. Unsurprisingly the tl;dr section was the most appealing to me:
http://networkedsystemsethics.net/index.php?title=Networked_Systems_Ethics#Summary_questions_.28TL.3BDR.29




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bendert Zevenbergen <bendert.zevenbergen at oii.ox.ac.uk>
Date: 3 May 2016 at 10:08
Subject: [OTF-Talk] Launching Ethics Guidelines


Dear All,



Today I’m launching the outcome of my OTF information controls
fellowship on the Ethics of Networked Systems Research:
http://networkedsystemsethics.net. Here a short explanation:



These Networked System Ethics guidelines aim to underpin a meaningful
cross-disciplinary conversation between gatekeepers of ethics
standards and researchers about the ethical and social impact of
technical Internet research projects.



At heart of this work is the iterative reflexivity methodology that
guides stakeholders to identify and minimize risks and other burdens.
These must be mitigated to the largest extent possible by adjusting
the design of the project before data collection takes place.



The aim is thus to improve the ethical considerations of individual
projects, but also to streamline the proceedings of ethical
discussions in Internet research (or product development) generally.



The primary audience for these guidelines is technical researchers
(e.g. computer science, network engineering, as well as social
science) and gatekeepers of ethics standards at institutions, academic
journals, conferences, and funding agencies.  It would be great if
these guidelines do get used beyond academic research in civil
society, product development, or otherwise.


This is not just my work, but these guidelines were developed in
cooperation with many great people who attended workshops worldwide.
Here’s a workshop report and a case study that show how this work
developed:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2666934

http://bdes.datasociety.net/council-output/case-study-no-encore-for-encore/



I’m very interested to hear if you have applied these guidelines to
your projects, or whether you have comments on this work! Feel free to
forward this email..!



Many thanks to OTF for making this possible and their excellent support!



Ben


------------------------------------------------
Ben Zevenbergen
DPhil (PhD) Candidate
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
Senior Fellow Open Technology Fund