"I agree to the terms and conditions..." (Lauren Mesley - Blog Post #5)

Image pulled from Wijetunga

This week I’m thinking about ethics and consent when it comes to social media. Last semester, I took an Introduction to Research Methods course where I had to draft a letter of informed consent for my hypothetical research proposal, and I got a good sense of the hoops that researchers have to jump through to get their human-subject research approved by an IRB. Perfect informed consent involves sitting down with a participant and verbally walking them through each section of the consent form and emphasizing numerous times that they can choose to stop participation at any time before holding a place in the conversation for questions, and finally having them sign the form. 

Compare that to the page that pops up when you create an account on a social media platform which requires you to agree to the platform’s Terms and Conditions before you can move on. Studies have repeatedly shown that users rarely read through the Terms and Conditions before agreeing to them, and those who do are faced with a lengthy document stuffed with legal jargon. To quote Minoli Wijetunga, “It’s almost as if these Terms and Conditions were written to breed fatigue, exhaust the reader to consenting without too much critical engagement." Not to mention the sheer number of different platforms with different Terms and Conditions, it would be unrealistic to read and keep track of all of them. 

Wijetunga’s article focuses specifically on the ethics of informed consent when doing academic research on social media platforms, but this also demonstrates a larger issue: most users do not know what they are consenting to when they create a social media account, and social media platforms do not make it easy for those who want to. On the contrary, they make it a significant burden. 

Comments

  1. Lizzy SblendorioOctober 2, 2025 at 8:01 PM

    Hi Lauren! Your post is so interesting and well explained. When we reach a site (at this point it is on every page) we are hit with the agree with the terms and conditions. I have truly never looked into what it means but your post made me realize that I should. Like many others, we just click ok and move on. We never truly know or understand what we are agreeing with and that is a very scary thought. Great job!

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  2. AnonymousOctober 6, 2025 at 12:23 PM

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