[Air-L] Facebook needs to open up its data to impartial, outside researchers

[xDxD.vs.xDxD]

Hello everyone,

of course reframing the problem into "FB needs to open up data with
researchers" only partially addresses the problem.

Because the problem is and remains the complete power asymmetry between
"us" and "data".

As of today, we cannot know what data/information is harvested from our
behaviour, we have no way of intervening, and we also have no tools for
perception, to perceive what happens and what implications it has.

In this scenario, the proposal of the "ethical researcher in the white
coat" who has access to the data, if stated on its own, seems limited, to
say the least.

We may want to constantly try to address these issues in other terms, those
of people's empowerment, not ones which, in the end, have people basically
not move from their position on the petri dish.

No problems are solved in the lab, problems are solved right in the middle
of society, with everyone involved.

Sorry for the small rant, but this is a constant: it is not researchers who
need the data, it is people themselves, who need awareness, tools,
coordination/organisation capacity; and there's just too much research that
does not acknowledge this; entire city administrations who are interested
in the analytics, in the predictions, in the optimizations, etcetera, and
not a bit in reducing the power asymmetry. And the examples, as you all
perfectly know, could go on.

These "Trump" things (as the ones with the Movimento 5 Stelle or the Lega
Nord, in Italy where I live, or the extreme right movements all over, etc )
happen because there are divides, and because these divides appear in
scenarios of complete power asymmetry, in which a few can easily steer them.

We might want to keep this in mind

s


On Sat, Nov 12, 2016 at 6:27 PM, Jeff Pooley <pooley at muhlenberg.edu> wrote:

> Facebook needs to open up its data to impartial, outside researchers: the
> future of democracy in the U.S. may hang in the balance:
>
> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/11/11/we_
> can_t_know_whether_facebook_is_to_blame_for_trump_s_win.html
>
>
> ---------
>
> Jeff Pooley, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Media & Communication
> Muhlenberg College
> 2400 Chew St., Allentown, PA 18104
> 484-664-3677
> jeffpooley.com
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