Unsure whether to continue maintaining research account on Facebook re Cambridge Analytica I maintain a Facebook account purely for research purposes. I have about 30 or so friends on my account. I have always disagreed with FB and its ethics, however, recently, in the light of the CA scandal I have found myself increasingly questioning my use of the site. 

The benefits that FB provide to the researcher of virtual communities are undoubtedly strong. Much of my master's research focused on virtual communities in Iraq and Syria, and much of this would have been impossible without FB. However now I am considering deleting my account in the wake of these - unsurprising - revelations. 

As a PhD student, the benefits of being part of an online social community are notable. As a Linux user and a supporter of Free and Open Source Software I also have to wrestle with the occasional difficulties of trying to get software to work which Windows or Macs users would breeze through with ease, but I am happy to do so because of my support for free software and the additional learning/skills I inherit. 

Maintaining an ethical standard re software and software companies becomes increasingly difficult in the modern climate. Does one just put one's ethical beliefs on the back burner in the interests of research and should one be perpetually plagued with the decisions one has made to maintain a FB account in spite of disagreeing strongly with the company? Or does one delete one's account and potentially miss out on the great research opportunities it provides?
You are facing a moral dilemma that only you can answer. We all are facing a similar dilemma:


  Do my professional activities contribute to the wealth of un-ethical companies?


That company may be Facebook, a publisher, a software company, a private group, etc.
Most of the people I know will think


  If I don't have the choice, I will go with it but keep an eye open for the alternatives, and make sure the people I work with are aware of that dilemma.


I use C# and Visual Studio in my teaching, despite not really liking Microsoft: I roll with it, but make sure my students know of the alternatives, and bring up the topic regularly with my colleagues, in the hope that we will collectively chose an alternative.

Arguably you can't make that switch on your own: you can't make all the virtual communities in Iraq and Syria switch to Diaspora overnight, but you can create an account on that website as well, encourage people to switch, and keep an eye on both platforms.

As you stated, that recent "scandal" with Facebook didn't create that dilemma: you already knew that your data was used in all sorts of ways. But maybe you can use it to encourage some of your contacts to move to a different platform?



Some people have the opposite approach and put their morals before their career: Alexander Grothendieck is such an example. Quoting Wikipedia:


  Grothendieck's political views were radical and pacifist […]. He retired from scientific life around 1970, after having discovered that the IHÉS was partly funded by the military.