In this paper we discuss the notion of group consent, in particular as it is applied to online social networks. Social networks, and the legislation that governs social networks, are generally organized around an individual consent principle: individual end-users are presumed to be the legitimate owners of the data that they share with the platforms that instantiate the networks, and those individual end-users are then required to consent to any acquisition, analysis, or transfer of that information by the platform. Recent moves to strengthen individual rights in online communities, such as the GDPR, generally tighten the knowledge condition (with the goal that any consent of the end-users be properly informed) or strengthen individual rights with respect to consent (so that consent is not coerced, or so that consent can be specific to certain acts, or so that consent can be revoked). While these moves to strengthen the rights surrounding individual consent are important, we argue that individual consent to data transactions are ultimately flawed because data transactions do not merely implicate the platform and the end-user; rather, data transactions can (and often do) expose personal information of every person who is networked with the end-user to the platform, even if they are not users of the platform at all. Individual consent to data transactions fails, we argue, because data are not merely about the end-user.

If this is correct, then we face a challenge. We argue that consent continues to be an important component of data transactions, and so it is important to find something analogous to individual consent that can play that role. We consider two possibilities: the first we call distributed consent, and the second we call group consent. Distributed consent seeks to ground collective consent in structured and interrelated individual consent transactions. In effect, distributed consent allows individuals to constitute a group through their (individual) consent-related choices. Group consent, on the other hand, seeks to determine the consent of the group as a group agent. Group consent requires that the group be a sufficiently unified and sufficiently robust agent to have the power to consent. We argue that, while group consent is promising in some contexts, it is generally unsuitable for governing data transactions on social network platforms because data are too leaky and the knowledge condition required for informed consent is too demanding. We argue that the only suitable group for giving group consent is (democratic) society as a whole. We suggest in conclusion that the most promising solution seems to be distributed consent on platforms, along with governing legislation aimed at protecting a broad level of group consent.