Back in 2019, a group of scholars published a paper in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) discussing the ethics of sharing data from Crisis Text Line users for noncommercial purposes - such as research.

Tim Reierson argues that there were undisclosed conflicts of interest, prompting a small correction from the journal:

We do not see any attempts to deceive reviewers or editors by concealing that this is a collaborative project that involved staff members of Crisis Text Line and academic experts and ethicists comprising the Data Ethics Committee. ….

However, JMIR Publications’ policy has stated since 2017 that conflicts of interest disclosures for authors include “non-financial competing interests,” including “membership in a government or other advisory board”. ….

Given the Loris.ai controversy, which unfolded after publication of the 2019 paper, and which involved sharing of anonymized Crisis Text Line data with the commercial subsidiary Loris.ai for machine learning purposes, these relationships as well as relationships to Loris.ai could have been disclosed more explicitly, which is why we are updating the Conflicts of Interest section for this publication accordingly. ….

The Journal of Medical Internet Research editors do not think that this revised conflicts of interest statement affected the peer review process or the validity of this viewpoint article. Consequently, the noted issue of concern regarding undisclosed conflicts of interest, given the information currently available, did not appear to meet criteria for further action, such as a notice of editorial concern or retraction.

The correction was followed this week by four commentaries in JMIR:

Reierson argues that the authors focus on the commercial/noncommercial distinction elides the importance of speaking out against commercial data sharing: “by not calling Crisis Text Line out they fail the moment.”