JSOMER uses double-blind peer review. Authors and reviewers remain unidentified to one another throughout the process. Reviewers must not attempt to identify authors through searches, citation patterns, repositories, conference materials, preprints, or other sources.

If an author’s identity is discovered or reasonably suspected and that knowledge may create a conflict or affect impartiality, the reviewer should inform the handling editor. Reviewers must not reveal their identity or contact authors directly.

Before accepting, reviewers should assess whether they have sufficient expertise, can provide an impartial evidence-based evaluation, can meet the requested deadline, have no relevant conflict, can protect confidentiality, and can comply with journal policies.

A reviewer unable to satisfy these conditions should decline promptly. Declining does not disadvantage future invitations. Alternative reviewers may be suggested, but selection authority remains with the editor.

Reviewers should accept assignments only when qualified to assess the central subject, method, or analytical approach. A reviewer able to assess only part of a manuscript should disclose that limitation to the editor.

Reviewers should not offer authoritative conclusions outside their competence. When specialist assessment is needed, the issue should be identified without unsupported judgment so the editor can seek additional expertise.

Reviewers must disclose personal, professional, institutional, academic, intellectual, financial, supervisory, competitive, or dispute-related interests that could reasonably affect or appear to affect independent judgment.

Potential conflicts include current or recent collaboration, the same institution or unit, close relationships, participation in the work, direct competition, financial interests, prior access affecting impartiality, or involvement in a related dispute. When uncertain, disclose the relationship and allow the editor to decide. A conflict discovered after acceptance requires the reviewer to stop and notify the editor.

Reports are normally requested within 21 days after acceptance of the invitation. Reviewers needing additional time should contact the Editorial Office before the deadline; a reasonable extension may be granted when it will not create unnecessary delay.

If completion becomes impossible, the reviewer should notify the journal promptly. The editor may withdraw assignments from reviewers who do not respond or cannot complete the work within a reasonable period.

The manuscript, supplements, invitation, report, correspondence, and all related information are confidential. Reviewers must not share, disclose, discuss, exploit, retain unnecessarily, distribute, or use unpublished content for personal, academic, institutional, financial, or commercial benefit.

Consultation or co-review with a colleague, trainee, statistician, or specialist requires prior editorial permission. Every contributor must be identified, disclose conflicts, follow confidentiality rules, and participate genuinely. The invited reviewer remains accountable for the report. Review invitations must not be transferred without authorization.

Reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts, supplements, unpublished data, reviews, or correspondence to unauthorized external generative AI systems. AI must not replace personal reading, critical assessment, scholarly judgment, or professional responsibility.

Where a secure tool is permitted for limited assistance, the reviewer remains responsible for confidentiality, output verification, detection of fabricated or unsupported statements, independent evaluation, and required disclosure. Inappropriate AI use may result in withdrawal of the report, termination of the assignment, or discontinuation of future invitations.

Evaluation should address the submitted work rather than an author’s presumed identity, nationality, location, affiliation, status, reputation, language background, or personal characteristics. Interdisciplinary work should be assessed with sensitivity to legitimate disciplinary differences.

Reviewers should not require their preferred theory, method, terminology, citations, or interpretation unless the requested change is necessary to correct a substantive scholarly, methodological, reporting, or ethical problem.

Reviewers should apply criteria appropriate to the manuscript type and discipline.

• relevance to JSOMER and substantive contribution to social media research;
• originality, significance, and engagement with relevant international scholarship;
• clarity of title, abstract, keywords, research questions, aims, and arguments;
• appropriateness and consistency of the theoretical or conceptual framework;
• research design, sampling, measurement, procedures, transparency, validity, reliability, bias, and reproducibility;
• appropriateness of analysis, assumptions, uncertainty, missing data, robustness, model fit, and interpretation;
• clarity and completeness of results, tables, figures, and supplementary material;
• alignment of evidence, discussion, conclusions, limitations, implications, and recommendations;
• accuracy, relevance, and proportionality of references.

Reviewers should adapt their assessment to the design rather than impose inappropriate standards from another tradition.

• Quantitative and observational research: sampling, measurement, power, missing data, confounding, models, effect sizes, uncertainty, causality, and sensitivity analyses.
• Qualitative research: methodological position, sampling rationale, reflexivity, data generation, coding, transparency, credibility, dependability, confirmability, and ethical handling.
• Mixed methods: justification, quality of each component, sequencing, integration, conflicting findings, and contribution of integration.
• Experimental and intervention research: randomization, allocation, comparators, intervention description, manipulation checks, blinding, attrition, outcomes, registration, and adverse events.
• Clinical, health, and epidemiological research: population, eligibility, outcomes, ethics, consent, confidentiality, risk-benefit balance, registration, bias, and responsible health claims.
• Computational and AI research: data provenance, preprocessing, legality, ethics, bias, model description, validation, baselines, reproducibility, explainability, privacy, fairness, security, misuse, and substantive contribution.
• Social network and social media research: network definitions, boundaries, access, platform bias, bots, temporal validity, deleted content, ethics, privacy, metrics, and substantive conclusions.
• Systematic, scoping, and meta-analytic reviews: protocol, search reproducibility, databases, eligibility, screening, extraction, bias assessment, synthesis, heterogeneity, effect sizes, sensitivity, and reporting standards.
• Theoretical, conceptual, methodological, and brief reports: coherent argument, novelty, utility, validation, assumptions, limitations, reproducibility, and sufficient reporting despite brevity.

Reviewers should assess ethics approval or exemption, informed consent or waiver, assent and guardian permission, privacy, confidentiality, vulnerable populations, animal approval, trial registration, legal requirements, risks, harms, and adverse events where relevant.

Public social media content is not automatically ethically unrestricted. Reviewers should consider data source, collection method, platform rules, law, consent, identifiability, searchable quotations, vulnerability, anonymization, surveillance, profiling, discrimination, harm, sharing restrictions, and documented ethical review.

Reviewers should assess transparency and availability of data, code, search strategies, instruments, interview guides, coding frameworks, protocols, stimuli, model configurations, supplementary analyses, and other supporting materials where relevant.

Absence of open data does not automatically justify rejection; ethical, legal, privacy, consent, licensing, commercial, or security limits may apply. Reviewers should consider whether restrictions are explained credibly and sufficient information remains for evaluation. Confidential data should be requested only through authorized editorial procedures.

Reviewers should consider whether a genuinely applicable reporting guideline has been followed for randomized trials, observational studies, evidence syntheses, qualitative research, diagnostic studies, prediction models, case reports, protocols, animal research, or AI studies.

A checklist does not replace critical evaluation of validity, ethics, transparency, and contribution. Reviewers should not recommend an inapplicable guideline merely as a preference.

A report should be sufficiently detailed to support an editorial decision and help authors improve the manuscript.

Reports must remain respectful, professional, specific, and focused on the manuscript. Insults, humiliation, threats, sarcasm directed at authors, discrimination, personal criticism, identity-based comments, and unsupported misconduct allegations are prohibited.

Citation recommendations should correct important omissions, represent relevant evidence, improve theoretical or methodological accuracy, acknowledge competing interpretations, or support claims. They must not primarily increase citations to the reviewer, colleagues, institutions, or a particular journal. Authors need not add irrelevant or unnecessary references.

Reviewers should alert the handling editor confidentially when evidence suggests plagiarism, redundant publication, undisclosed text recycling, fabrication, falsification, image manipulation, selective reporting, undisclosed conflicts, inappropriate authorship, misrepresented ethics approval, peer-review or citation manipulation, unauthorized confidential data use, fabricated references, or inappropriate AI use.

Specific evidence or a clear explanation should be provided. Reviewers must not disclose allegations publicly, contact authors or institutions directly, or conduct intrusive independent investigations. The editor determines the appropriate next step.

Recommendations must be justified clearly and respectfully.

• Accept: suitable without substantive revision; use sparingly.
• Minor revision: fundamentally sound and requiring limited changes that do not alter central methods, analysis, or conclusions.
• Major revision: potentially publishable but requiring substantial, potentially correctable changes.
• Resubmit for review: extensive reconstruction or additional work is needed and a new review round would be required.
• Decline: a fundamental scope, contribution, design, methodological, evidentiary, ethical, duplication, or reliability problem cannot reasonably be corrected.

Reviewer recommendations are advisory. Editors do not count recommendations mechanically; they consider report quality, reasoning, expertise, seriousness of concerns, author responses, scholarly and ethical quality, and journal policies.

The final decision may differ from a reviewer’s recommendation. Reviewers must not pressure editors to adopt a particular outcome.

Reviewers should examine the revised manuscript, point-by-point response, implemented changes, explanations for suggestions not followed, and new issues introduced by revision. The central question is whether major concerns were addressed adequately.

Extensive new requirements should not be introduced in later rounds unless revisions created a new problem, the issue could not reasonably have been identified earlier, important information changed, or a serious methodological, ethical, or reporting concern became apparent. Defensible author choices should be acknowledged even when they differ from reviewer preferences.

Confidentiality continues after submission. Reviewers should delete files when no longer required, subject to applicable retention obligations, and should not reveal participation in a particular review without authorization. Significant later-discovered errors or conflicts should be reported promptly.

With reviewer consent and subject to confidentiality, JSOMER may provide certificates, confirmation letters, annual acknowledgment, service records, or reviewer-profile recognition. Recognition must not connect a reviewer publicly to a manuscript without appropriate consent.

Future invitations may reflect expertise, report quality, constructiveness, timeliness, conflict disclosure, professionalism, confidentiality, reliability, and policy compliance.

JSOMER may discontinue invitations where reviewers repeatedly submit superficial reports, miss deadlines without communication, breach confidentiality, hide conflicts, use discriminatory language, make coercive citation requests, manipulate review, misuse manuscript information, misuse AI, improperly delegate work, or otherwise fail to meet these guidelines.

Reviewers may structure the report as Summary and Overall Assessment, Major Strengths, numbered Major Comments, numbered Minor Comments, confidential Ethical or Integrity Concerns, and a justified Recommendation.

• The assignment was within the reviewer’s expertise and limitations were disclosed.
• Relevant conflicts were disclosed and confidentiality was maintained.
• The complete manuscript and relevant supplements were considered.
• Comments are objective, respectful, specific, and evidence-based.
• Major, minor, and optional comments are distinguished.
• Citation requests are necessary, relevant, and justified.
• No unsupported allegation was made.
• Comments to editors and authors are reasonably consistent.
• The recommendation is supported by the report.
• No confidential material was uploaded to an unauthorized AI system.
• The review was not delegated improperly.
• The report provides enough information to support an editorial decision.