Globally, governments are considering policies regarding transparency and data sharing requirements for online platforms. One popular proposal includes mandating that platforms provide data sets of high reach content (content that reaches a large audience or comes from an account with a large following) disclosures similar to CrowdTangle (Platform Transparency: Understanding the Impact of Social Media, 2022). Proposals vary between making this data completely public versus keeping it available to certified researchers. Policy makers must consider the context (Nissenbaum, 2009) in which the data is shared and amplified, the account’s expectations of privacy and important notions regarding universal access to data and newsworthiness (Bezanson; 1992). These proposals pose important questions regarding when social media data officially crosses into the public domain and how AoIR’s ethical frameworks may be implicated (franzke et al, 2020; Buchanan & Markham, 2012).

This round table will convene experts in platform regulation, privacy and research ethics to discuss:

• What subset of online platforms should be responsible for providing high reach content/accounts? What contextual aspects of a platform’s design or the high-profile accounts on a platform should be considered?

• What are the privacy expectations of an account that is consistently reaching a large audience? Do these expectations vary based on the mechanism that results in those audiences (large subscriber base, algorithmic amplification)?

• In the case of public content, should the academic community and/or regulators consider use restrictions?

• How would such data sets implicate deletion rights?

• How should the international community think about the geographical jurisdiction of such data sets? Are they globally accessible? Do they include data belonging to high profile accounts regardless of the individual’s nationality?

• How should ethical principles be applied in the case of bystanders?