What Counts as “People” in Digital Social Research? Subject Rethinking and Its Ethical Consequences

This article examines how digitalization reshapes the research subject in social inquiry. We ask, “What counts as a research subject in digital social research, and how do we ethically account for people represented through data, traces, and algorithmic profiles?” We argue that data are inseparable from the people who produce and are affected by them and describe a three-pronged separation—between data and persons, persons and bodies, and researchers and persons—that risks dehumanization. Drawing on examples of native and digitized data and on voluntary, unintentional, and infrastructural traces, we map key harms, including privacy breaches, dataveillance, manipulation, and discrimination. We then revisit core ethical principles—consent, anonymity, and confidentiality—considering open science and platform-mediated environments, and highlight the role of algorithmic awareness. The paper offers a conceptual reframing of the “subject” in digital social research and provides a set of practical implications for responsible practices. We conclude with recommendations to re-humanize data through relational ethics, transparent methods, and participant education.