Gao, Ruiyao
Wu, Yijin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2505-6575
Article History
Received: 1 July 2023
Accepted: 7 June 2024
First Online: 20 June 2024
Competing interests
: The authors declare no competing interests.
: The data for this study is sourced from publicly accessible blogs on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). These blogs are available to the public without restrictions and can be accessed by anyone with internet access. Furthermore, the datasets have been anonymized to protect the privacy and confidentiality of individuals. Numerous studies have demonstrated that using data from publicly accessible platforms or websites for research purposes is ethically permissible. Below are several references that support the ethical use of publicly available data in research: Robinson KM (2001) Unsolicited narratives from the Internet: A rich source of qualitative data. Qualitative Health Research 11:706–714. Eysenbach G, Till J (2001) Ethical issues in qualitative research on Internet communities. British Medical Journal 323:1103–1105. Zimmer M (2010) “But the data is already public”: On the ethics of research in Facebook. Ethics and Information Technology 12(4):313-325. Ahmed W, Bath PA, Demartini G (2017) “Using Twitter as a Data Source: An Overview of Ethical, Legal, and Methodological Challenges”, Woodfield, K. (Ed.) The Ethics of Online Research (Advances in Research Ethics and Integrity, Vol. 2), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 79-107. Anderson JG, Eppes A, O’Dwyer ST (2019) “Like death is near”: expressions of suicidal and homicidal ideation in the blog posts of family caregivers of people with dementia. Behavioral sciences 9(3):22. Wiltshire D, Alvanides S (2022) Ensuring the ethical use of big data: lessons from secure data access. Heliyon 8(2): e08981.
: This study draws upon data gathered from publicly accessible blogs on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). Given the public nature of these blogs and the absence of direct engagement with individuals, obtaining explicit informed consent from Xiaohongshu users may not be requisite. Gathering data from publicly accessible online social media platforms for research purposes is widely regarded as permissible. Moreover, all collected data has been anonymized to safeguard against the inclusion of personal identifiers, thereby upholding the privacy and confidentiality of users and ensuring that their personal interests are not compromised.