This presentation will highlight some of these challenges from the perspective of a researcher exploring the social media risk environment for prescription drug abuse who often asks himself where the line in digital ethics resides. Social media use is now ubiquitous. Popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter command millions and even billions of users, making their online communities larger than the population of many countries. As the number of users interacting continues to grow, so does the amount of data generated. And much of that data is in the public domain—accessible to companies, researchers, and the government. This user-generated data contain diverse types of information and associated metadata, including sensitive and private details about people’s daily lives, personal behavior, and social networks. Importantly, with advances in technology (such as artificial intelligence) these can be used to uncover valuable information about trends in human behavior, including important health issues such as substance abuse behavior. As these social and technological spheres converge, ethical concerns about the manner in which the data are collected, analyzed, and ultimately used and disseminated are at the forefront of a new digital ethical paradigm.