Research Alert
Background: A growing amount of health research uses social media data. Those critical of social media research often cite that it may be unrepresentative of the population; however, the suitability of social media data in digital epidemiology is more nuanced. Identifying the demographics of social media users can help establish representativeness. Objective: This study aims to identify the different approaches or combination of approaches to extract race or ethnicity from social media and report on the challenges of using these methods. Methods: We present a scoping review to identify methods used to extract the race or ethnicity of Twitter users from Twitter data sets. We searched 17 electronic databases from the date of inception to May 15, 2021, and carried out reference checking and hand searching to identify relevant studies. Sifting of each record was performed independently by at least two researchers, with any disagreement discussed. Studies were required to extract the race or ethnicity of Twitter users using either manual or computational methods or a combination of both. Results: Of the 1249 records sifted, we identified 67 (5.36%) that met our inclusion criteria. Most studies (51/67, 76%) have focused on US-based users and English language tweets (52/67, 78%). A range of data was used, including Twitter profile metadata, such as names, pictures, information from bios (including self-declarations), or location or content of the tweets. A range of methodologies was used, including manual inference, linkage to census data, commercial software, language or dialect recognition, or machine learning or natural language processing. However, not all studies have evaluated these methods. Those that evaluated these methods found accuracy to vary from 45% to 93% with significantly lower accuracy in identifying categories of people of color. The inference of race or ethnicity raises important ethical questions, which can be exacerbated by the data and methods used. The comparative accuracies of the different methods are also largely unknown. Conclusions: There is no standard accepted approach or current guidelines for extracting or inferring the race or ethnicity of Twitter users. Social media researchers must carefully interpret race or ethnicity and not overpromise what can be achieved, as even manual screening is a subjective, imperfect method. Future research should establish the accuracy of methods to inform evidence-based best practice guidelines for social media researchers and be guided by concerns of equity and social justice.
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