Comment by belval
4 years ago
To me it depends on whether they lied to the ethics board or not. If they truly framed their research as "sending emails" then the individual is 100% at fault. If they clearly defined what they were trying to do and no one raised an issue then it is absolutely the university's fault.
I think it's more than whether they lied, it's whether the ethics board is even plausibly equipped to fully understand the ramifications of what they proposed to do: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26890490
Well if the ethics board is not decently equipped to understand the concerns with this type of research I would say a full ban is perfectly understandable.