J. Thomas. 1996. "When Cyber-Research Goes Awry: The Ethics of the
Rimm 'Cyberporn' Study." The Information Society. 12(2): 189-197.
When Cyber-Research Goes Awry:
The Ethics of the Rimm "Cyberporn" Study
Jim Thomas
Department of Sociology
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL (60115)
When Laud Humphries (1970) published Tea Room Trade over two
decades ago, he drew unprecedented criticism from social
scientists for the ethics of his study of gay culture and
lifestyles. Humphries developed an innovative method to identify
subjects and gather data. First, he lingered in truckstop
restrooms and watched for gay sexual activity, on occasion even
serving as "lookout" for the participants. Then, he recorded the
automobile license numbers of the participants as they left the
area. From the licenses, he obtained the names and addresses of
the gay participants and, several months later, contacted them as
if they were randomly selected for an unrelated sociological
study. Although his published works did not reveal personal or
other damaging information, did not provide any details of
individuals, and put no subjects at risk, Humphries was
castigated as an unethical scholar. His study also generated
considerable debate over the ethical obligations of social
scientists toward human subjects.
Like most things that we take for granted, we rarely pay
attention to ethical issues in research until something goes
horribly wrong. Often relegated to peripheral lectures in
methods courses, assigned to obscure academic committees for
occasional review, and given little thought by anybody else, some
may assume that the issues are of neither substantive importance
nor significant relevance outside of a small circle of scholars.
Here, I challenge this assumption. Focusing on a recent
cyber-research project gone-awry, this essay illustrates why
ethical issues should be continually confronted and discussed by
scholars and non-scholars alike.
All research possesses potential ethical dilemmas, but
naturalistic research would seem to pose the greatest risks.
Associated with ethnography and other methods that draw from
direct observation of, participation in, or interviews with
subjects, naturalistic research requires inside information and
revelation about the interactions and minute activity of
participants. This increases the risk of privacy intrusion,
manipulation of subjects, and dissemination of potentially
harmful information (Thomas and Marquart, 1988). Even the most
mundane fieldwork projects can pose ethical problems, because:
Fieldwork takes us into a potentially vast range of social
settings which can lead to unpredictable consequences for
researcher and researched. The ethical factors associated
with the control and regulation of social scientific
research are accentuated in participant observation because
the fieldworker often has to be interactionally "deceitful"
in order to survive and succeed. Ethical codes fail to
solve the situational ethics of the field and threaten to
restrict considerably a great deal of research (Punch,
1986, p. 71).
Mario Brajuha (1986) learned this in the course of his
dissertation study of restaurant workers. Brajuha collected
fieldnotes and interview data, observing the usual ethical
canons. During his research, there was a fire in the restaurant,
and the police suspected arson. They demanded that he turn over
his data in hopes of discovering a clue to the arsonist. What
should he do? Formal ethical guidelines and professional codes
were of little use, and he was left to work out the solution
guided by his own precepts of "right." Because he had promised
his subjects anonymity, he refused to release the data, and was
jailed for contempt of court.
The lesson for all researchers from Brajuha's experience, including
those engaged in electronic data gathering, is simple, yet
profound: Ethical dilemmas can occur in any research. Without
constant attention to ethical problems, not only do researchers
risk improprieties, but both audiences and subjects may be
affected when problems arise.
It may seem that positivist-derived research poses fewer
problems, but such an assumption may be premature. Positivistic
research most generally refers to surveys, experiments, and other
forms of data gathering and processing in which observations are
reduced to numbers, usually for the purposes of statistical
descriptions and hypothesis testing. Examples in cyberspace
include generating frequencies of posts in Usenet groups,
comparing the distribution of male and female posters
cross-tabulated by topic, or testing "Godwin's Law," which holds
that the longer an argument continues in a discussion group, the
probability of Nazis or Hitler being invoked approaches one.
However, that research subjects are rendered invisible beneath
the cloak of cross-tabs and regression equations does not exclude
researchers from potential ethical concerns. A recent highly
visible study illustrates how lapses can slip by multiple levels
of professionals who presumably follow their own ethical codes.
THE "CARNEGIE MELLON/MARTIN RIMM" STUDY
When Time Magazine featured as its cover story a research project
about "pornography" on the Internet (Elmer-Dewitt, 1995), people
took notice, but not for the reasons Time editors likely had
hoped. The story reported the results of a Carnegie Mellon
University (CMU) undergraduate's "cyberporn" project published in
The Georgetown Law Journal (Rimm, 1995a). Although discredited
on intellectual and other grounds (Hoffman and Novack, 1995;
Godwin, 1995), questions immediately arose about the ethics of
the study and the multiple gate-keeping and oversight processes
that ignored the numerous overt ethical problems (Thomas, 1995a,
1995b).
The study was a long-term research project by then-undergraduate,
Marty Rimm. Originally called the "Carnegie Mellon Study," but
later renamed the "Rimm Study" after CMU distanced itself
following revelations of impropriety, it seemed innocuous enough.
The study was an analysis of the text descriptions of
erotica files taken from adult BBSes in the U.S. It included
analysis of Usenet posts from the alt.binaries hierarchy, and
summary statistics on Usenet readership obtained from private
newsgroup configuration files of users on a CMU computer system.
The study claimed to be comprehensive, the first of its kind, and
"scientific." It was controversial not only because of its flaws,
but because of its findings, which included "discovery" of a
substantial amount of freely-available "pornography in
findings were presented.
Normally, a fatally flawed undergraduate research project would
attract little attention, even if ethical violations were
serious. The Rimm study was an exception for several reasons.
First, it was ostensibly on a highly controversial and timely
topic, "pornography" on the Internet. Second, many of the
findings were challenged by other observers. Third, it was
published in a reputable, although non-peer reviewed, law
journal. Fourth, it became the cover story of Time Magazine.
Fifth, it received considerable media attention, including a
segment on ABC's Nightline. Sixth, it was cited in Congressional
hearings as evidence that the Internet should be controlled to
reduce "indecent" material. Seventh, Rimm was invited to present
his findings before Congressional hearings in support of the
"Communications Decency Act," which was part of the larger
Telecommunications Bill before Congress in 1995. Rimm's
invitation to testify was withdrawn when the study's
improprieties emerged. Finally, the "research team" drew
attention because it was allegedly comprised of deans,
professors, administrators, and others, under the direction of an
undergraduate "principal investigator."
THE ETHICAL VIOLATIONS OF THE RIMM STUDY
The Rimm study centered on three main data gathering techniques.
The primary data were gathered by initial modem or voice contact
with "approximately 1,000" BBS systems to collect an initial pool
of subjects (Rimm, 1995a: 1877). From these, 91 were ultimately
chosen, but only 35 were used. The research team downloaded
descriptions of "pornographic files" for analysis by a linguistic
parsing software script designed for the study. The BBSes were
not public, and the methodological discussion indicates that at
least half of the BBSes required proof of age, among other
information, as a requirement for access (Rimm, 1995a: 1878). In
other words, the BBSes were not accessible to the general public,
thus removing any compliance exemption that a project might
receive for conducting research in public settings. Other data
came directly from sysops about files, users, and other normally
privileged information. Supplemental data were taken from the
usage statistics of a university computer site that allowed
tracking of "the number of individual users at the university who
accessed pornographic and/or non-pornographic Usenet newsgroups
one a month or more" (Rimm, 1995a: 1865-66).
Drawing from the Federal Human Subjects guidelines (1991) and
Belmont Report (1979) summarized in the introduction to these
essays, it is evident that the Rimm study was intended as
research. It is equally indisputable that it involved gathering
information from human subjects. It is also indisputable that the
research involved direct interaction between at least some BBS
sysops, and that the data collection included gathering
information from non-public sources for which there is no
evidence that permission was acquired.
There are several areas of ethical concern in the Carnegie Mellon
study. Some are relatively minor and simply raise questions.
Others are devastating.
1. The CMU research team gathered data on the Usenet reading
habits of 4,227 users on a university computer system (Rimm,
1995a: 1865-66; 1870-71). It is not clear precisely how these
figures were gathered, because the methodological discussion
leaves room for considerable ambiguity. Only one cryptic
footnote provides clues, which itself raises questions about how
the CMU administration protects privacy of computer users:
The research team consulted with several privacy
experts and opted not to report detailed demographics of the
university population of computer pornography consumers.
These demographics included age, sex, nationality, marital
status, position (faculty, staff, student), and department.
Although the research team obtained such demographics by
means available to any authorized user of the campus
network, reporting them would raise complex ethical and
privacy issues. The data would have to be disguised in a
manner that could not be reconstructed to identify
individual users (Rimm, 1995a: 1869, n40).
The text suggests that the CMU team had licit access to
individual rather than aggregate data, and that these data, along
with other personal user data, were publicly available. While it
is possible that such data may be "world-readable" in
configuration files or through licit means, there is considerable
debate over whether it is ethical for researchers themselves to
access such data. The study's implication, however, is that a
computer administrator responsible for monitoring site statistics
acquired the data (Rimm, 1995a: 1865, n30). In responding to
critics, Rimm acknowledges that the Usenet data were collected by
"network engineers" (Rimm, 1995b).
If an individual researcher snoops through personal files, even
if--like an open window from a public street--they are visible,
the ethical acceptability of peeping cyber-Toms is not clear cut.
Such an act ought not be accepted as a licit part of a research
method without careful consideration and justification. If,
however, network engineers collected the Usenet data on
individual users, then it raises the question of the propriety of
a second party collecting and distributing information to a third
party for public consumption about the aggregate viewing habits
of individual users. It also suggests that users' reading habits
were not public, and scrutiny of their files required systematic
surveillance that, while even if defensible for system
maintenance, seems not as defensible when such data are passed to
a third party who ordinarily might not be authorized to receive,
let alone publish them.
Whether this is an ethical breach can only be determined by
examining the nature of the statistics provided to the
researchers and reviewing site user policies to determine the
level of the expectation of privacy. Perhaps no ethical
violations occurred, but the data gathering technique does raise
ethical questions about one form of electronic data gathering.
2. Another seemingly minor peccadillo derived from the site
data gathering is the implication that site users who protected
their privacy by blocking monitoring by system statisticians
might be pedophiles:
First, 11% of the computer users in this study block the
site. Second, some users have multiple accounts and avoid
detection by using a second account to access the Usenet.
While there is no evidence to suggest that Usenet and
Internet users who block the monitoring of their accounts
access pornography more frequently than those who do not,
one also cannot assume that a notable difference does not
exist. This is especially true in the context of pedophilia
and child pornography consumption. Preferential molesters
(i.e., pedophiles with a true sexual attraction to children)
frequently employ inventive mechanisms to evade discovery,
as discovery will likely lead to incarceration (Rimm, 1995a:
1865, n30).
The unusual implication of such wording aside, the inexplicable
association of persons on whom data is unavailable with
pedophilia and worse violates the principles both of "respect for
persons" and "justice." In the guise of "objective research," a
category of users is defined as possible felons simply because
they chose to protect their privacy.
3. More serious than the preceding concerns is the explicit
prescription that researchers minimize risk to subjects by using
caution and discretion in revealing data. Conventional canons of
research ethics proscribe revealing potentially harmful data.
That a researcher is able to acquire private and potentially
sensitive data does not confer a right to publish it. Rather, it
confers upon researchers an obligation to exercise special
caution when information is obtained from informants who do not
know they are the subjects of a study and are enticed to provide
information about third parties.
A violation of this obligation occurred in Rimm's commentary on
Robert Thomas, sysop of Amateur Action (AA) BBS. AA BBS is a
private adult system in California that requires registration and
a fee before granting access to erotica files, because the
information is not intended for public consumption. Although
some of the information cited by the Rimm study derived from
court records, the bulk appears to have come directly from Thomas
and other BBS sysops. As discussed below, the CMU research team
generally did not reveal their research identity to Thomas or
others, and it would appear that they collected data deceptively.
It is unlikely that Thomas (or any other subject) would approve
of such public stigmatizing and revelation of private data and
user habits. The information revealed includes not only file
lists and file descriptions, but also publication of presumably
private information that the AA BBS user list includes
subscribers from two cities in which Thomas faced legal problems.
One might argue that because Thomas is currently incarcerated on
charges related to distribution of pornography, the researcher
would therefore be released from the ethical obligations to
protect the privacy and safety of informants. However, as both
the Belmont Report and Federal guidelines indicate, precisely
because Thomas is unable to provide full consent increases the
ethical obligation of the researcher to protect him. Recall the
wording of the Belmont Report:
Respect for persons incorporates at least two ethical
convictions: first, that individuals should be treated as
autonomous agents, and second, that persons with diminished
autonomy are entitled to protection (BR, 1979: 4).
Because of Thomas's legal vulnerability, it is especially
important that a researcher not disclose covertly gathered and
potentially damaging information about a subject, regardless of
whether consent was given. Both the nature of the information
about Thomas and AA BBS and the tone of the discourse in which it
is delivered (Rimm, 1995a: 1912-13) constitute an explicit
violation of established ethical conventions intended to assure
the respect, well-being, and autonomy of human subjects. The
disclosure is of special concern because AA BBS remains in
existence as a viable commercial enterprise.
A second serious violation that constitutes a breach of the
principles to minimize risk to subjects lies in the study's
Appendix D, where cities from which BBS esers called are listed.
Given the stigmatizing language and context of the article, such
revelation reflects failure to comply not only with privacy norms
of sysops, but it also puts at potential risk third parties
(users) who would be unaware of data collection and subsequent
publication. The Rimm article acknowledges that, in some
countries, the penalty for possession of pornography is death.
Yet, these countries are included in Appendix D. Small U.S.
communities with a population of only a few thousand or less are
also included. What is the risk of such a list to third-parties
who are unaware of covert surveillance of their activities? How
might prosecutors, politicians, or parents in a small town react
if they suspected that a "porn consumer" or possible pedophile
lurked in the community? Given the manner in which the data are
presented as "paraphilia," "pedophilia," or worse, the
consequences of discovery or suspicion would be of no small
consequence to users in the current legislative and enforcement
climate of "anti-porn" sentiment. Even if risks to users were
negligible, it is not the right of a scholar to make the decision
to put others at even minimal risk.
4. Another serious ethical violation is the deceptive nature
in which Rimm and is team collected data. The study reported
initial contact with over 1,000 BBSes by modem or voice to
create a final population of (apparently) 91 BBSes (Rimm, 1995a:
1853).
Then the team either subscribed to, or logged on as a new
user or guest, to a number of representative pornographic
BBS (sic) and collected descriptive lists of the files
offered by each (Rimm, 1995a: 1876).
The Rimm study indicates that:
Many BBS (sic) either hide this information from their
customers or do not provide it because of space or software
limitations (Rimm, 1995a: 1879-80).
..........
In these instances, MEMBERS OF THE RESEARCH TEAM EITHER
SCREEN CAPTURED THE "ALLFILES" LIST IN DOUBLE LINE FORMAT,
OR PERSUADED THE SYSOP TO PROVIDE THE LIST PRIVATELY (Rimm,
1995a: 1880, emphasis added).
The CMU research team also indicates that they conducted "chats"
(private computer interaction) with the sysops to obtain
information (Rimm, 1995a: 1875). Not only is there no indication
that the sysops knew they were being studied, but there
is every indication that they did not:
MEMBERS OF THE RESEARCH TEAM DID NOT, AS A RULE, IDENTIFY
THEMSELVES AS RESEARCHERS (Rimm, 1995a: 1878, emphasis
added).
Recall the words from the Belmont Report:
In most cases of research involving human subjects, respect
for persons demands that subjects enter into the research
voluntarily and with adequate information (BR, 1979: 4).
If subjects do not know they are being researched, it's not
immediately obvious how they can enter into a project voluntarily
with adequate information. And, again from the Belmont Report:
Persons are treated in an ethical manner not only by
respecting their decisions and by protecting them from harm,
but also by making efforts to secure their well-being
(BR, 1979: 4).
It is clear that Rimm engaged in deception to gather the data in
a way that violated informed consent, privacy, and other explicit
conventions followed by social scientists and mandated by federal
principles and guidelines. If the remarks of the principle
investigator were reported accurately (Meeks, 1995), it is
possible that Rimm might even have gathered data fraudulently:
Dispatch asked Rimm: "Did your team go uncover, as it were,
when getting permission from these [BBS operators] to use
their information?" He {Rimm} replied only: "Discrete,
ain't we?"
When asked how he was able to obtain detailed customer
profiles from usually skeptical operators of adult BBSs he
says: "If you were a pornographer, and you don't have fancy
computers or Ph.D. statisticians to assist you, wouldn't you
be just a wee bit curious to see how you could adjust your
inventories to better serve your clientele? Wouldn't you
want to know that maybe you should decrease the number of
oral sex images and increase the number of bondage images?
Wouldn't you want someone to analyze your logfiles to better
serve the tastes of each of your customers? (Meeks, 1995).
5. Arguably the most egregious violation of ethics was the
grant application that Rimm, his faculty advisor, and another CMU
faculty colleague submitted in an attempt to secure federal
funding. According to a a former participant in the project, the
grant participants were aware of the Department of Justice's
prosecutorial interests in "adult" BBSes (Thomas, 1995b).
Because these were the subjects of Rimm's study, and because of
the nature of Rimm's analysis, the grant team judged that they
could devise a means to assist prosecutors in allocating
resources more effectively. One co-author of the grant described
the goals:
1) A summary of the statistics of "pornography" traffic that
would identify the proportion of BBSes with a high
percentage of material that might be worth prosecuting;
2) Consumption and usage trends over time: If pornography or
pedophilia increases, then it would indicate that the BBS
is trying to cultivate that market;
3) Information on individual downloads and covariance of
user preferences that would correlate which types of
files are most-likely to be associated other downloaded
files;
4) Placing it in the space of adult bulletin boards; adult
BBSes have different personalities, characteristics, and
specialties...who is the worst offender on pedophilia?
In his methodology, Rimm explains that he selected BBSes that
were either the largest and most active "pornography"
distributors, or that appeared to be aggressively moving into the
"pornography" market (Rimm, 1995a: 1876-77). These BBSes are
precisely those that the grant was designed to help prosecute,
because they constitute the full population that Rimm claimed to
study. The effect would be to identify and prosecute Rimm's
research subjects.
WHO GOOFED?
It would be comforting if the ethical lapses could be reduced
merely to merely the over-zealous excesses of an ambitious
undergraduate student. What makes this cyber-study significant
are the numerous people, all of whom are professionals presumably
guided by an ethical code, who failed to recognize and respond to
the explicit and unmistakable signs that something was amiss.
First, of course, was the student himself. Rimm was not a typical
young undergraduate, but a 31 year old with prior research
experience. Second was Rimm's faculty advisor who acknowledged
working closely on the project, who was aware of the methodology,
and who solicited federal funding for it. Third were the two
dozen deans, professors, and administrators who were listed as
part of the research team. Some of these "team members" later
disassociated from the study, and some apparently were unaware
that they were listed as members. But, most have remained
publicly silent. Fourth are the CMU funding personnel who
provided internal funding without a sufficiently adequate
proposal review of the nature of the research. Fifth were the CMU
administration and "privacy experts" who, in the heady days of
the study's initial publicity, were quite willing to identify
with the study, either without having read it or without interest
in the obvious problems. Sixth was the Georgetown Law Journal,
whose editors found no problem in publishing an article with
obvious ethical lapses. Seventh, three well-published attorneys
with national reputations commented on the article in the same
GLJ issue, and none apparently read the article with sufficient
care to notice the problems. Eighth, Time magazine editors and
staff writers read the initial article and failed to hear the
alarm bells. Ninth, Congressional legislators who, in attempting
to pass "ethical legislation" that would restrict the
transmission of erotica on the Internet, ignored the obvious
breaches in the evidence they hoped to adduce. Finally, CMU
again: When confronted with the overwhelming intellectual and
ethical questions, they delayed before distancing themselves from
the study and initiating an investigation of breaches done in its
name. As of this writing, CMU has remained publicly silent on
the outcome.
The study is instructive for several reasons. First, it
illustrates how many serious ethical breaches can occur in a
single study, even a seemingly innocuous one from a positivist
paradigm. Second, it reminds us that ethical scholarship extends
beyond the responsibility of a single researcher. Professionals
and the public share part of the task of being sensitive to how
data are collected, disseminated, and used. Third, the study
demonstrates how many levels of gatekeeping exist at which there
exists an opportunity for identifying and correcting problems.
Fourth, all of the problems in this study could have been
prevented by following existing guidelines and principles.
Fifth, and most important, the study shows what can happen when
we lose sight of the importance of research ethics: Those who
are in a position to spot problems may fail to do so.
CONCLUSION
This summary of the Rimm study is more than just the criticism of
unethical research. When research projects are highly visible and
taken seriously by the media, legislators, and policy makers,
they provide a model from which others draw for their own
research. When a model teaches the wrong lessons, how can
scholars who conduct research or teach research methods expect to
be taken seriously?
It would be tempting to excuse the excesses of the Rimm study by
noting the newness or novelty of cyberspace research, the lack of
social science research experience of Rimm and his faculty
advisor, or the ambiguity of existing ethical principles when
applied to online interaction. These excuses fail to recognize
that while situations may be complex, basic precepts of decency
are not. One need not be experienced to know that deception is
wrong, and such basic ethical guidelines as "don't lie to
subjects or put them at risk" contain little ambiguity.
The view that "cyberspace" is unique because it occupies no
physical space, is bodiless and incorporeal, and thus requires
new rules for scholars, erroneously extracts selected
characteristics of the medium and confuses the simulacra for the
thing itself. This view substitutes the trope of synecdoche,
conceptualizing the part as the whole, with that of metaphor, the
construction of an alternative imagery of the whole. Cleaver
(1996) incisively points out the errors of viewing cyberspace as
a non-place:
The problem with the characterization is that it treats the
Net as if it were a system of machines (computers and phone
lines) whereas it has only existed and only continues to
exist in the communicative actions of the humans who created
and continue to recreate it. This particular system of
machines is just like any other system of machines: a moment
of human social relationships. While the machine system is
truly an "artifact so humanly constructed", the machine
system is not "the Net"; it is only the sinew or perhaps the
nervous system of a Net constituted by human interactions.
As an evolving series of human interactions the Net occupies
precisely the space of those participating human beings.
Humans as corporeal beings always occupy space and their
personal and collective interactions structure and
restructure that space (Cleaver, 1996).
The problem with conceptualizing situations shaped by new
technologies, changing norms, or shifting circumstances as unique
and in need of new ethical rules contains two flaws: First, it
misses the point that every situation is unique, as Thales long
ago observed. Second, it would require a litany of rules and
principles that would lead us to a futile exercise in perpetual
rule construction.
No set of rules, formal or otherwise, can provide unambiguous
answers to complex ethical questions that often arise. As a
consequence, existing guidelines, such as the Belmont Report, and
procedures for organizationally implenting these guidelines, such
as federal rules specifying treatment of human subjects, are
sufficient for most research. To my mind, the Golden Rule
remains a solid principle, and it can be practiced by three
general guidelines: 1) Never deceive subjects; 2) Never
knowingly put subjects at risk; and 3) Maximize public and
private good while minimizing harm. Sometimes these precepts may
conflict, but a conflict only strengthens the precepts by forcing
us into increased awareness of and dialogue about the
relationship between "doing right" and "doing research."
The value of Storm King's and the other essays in this volume is
their utility for not only identifying specific problems facing
researchers, but engaging in dialogue over the competing ways of
resolving them. His insistence that we collectively engage in
on-going discussion of ethics suggests that this concluding
sentence is the beginning, not the end, of the message of this
volume.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Godwin, Mike. 1995. Collected Articles on the Mary Rimm
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_____. 1995b. "Rimm Response to Hoffman and Novak." Available at:
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