[Air-L] New Social Media and Democracy Research Facebook Group - AOIR

Tue Apr 17 22:31:32 PDT 2018

In a word, yes.

To be sure, there are wonderful potentials and promising opportunities 
here.  And the academic players involved, from my perspective, are 
clearly first rate.
But given the platform's rather dreadful record on privacy matters (to 
put it charitably) and the comparatively weaker privacy protections and 
culture of the U.S. more broadly, it is more than reasonable to voice 
these concerns at the very outset.

Thanks for an excellent list, kalev.  I very much hope that those 
involved in this new initiative will be able to take these - and related 
- concerns on board from the outset.

best,
- charles ess
Co-chair, AoIR Ethics Working Group

On 17/04/2018 18:00, kalev leetaru wrote:
> With respect to the Facebook/SSRC initiative, it will be very interesting
> to see how the ethical landscape of such unprecedented researcher access to
> Facebook plays out. In my interview with SSRC about the new effort, Alondra
> noted that SSRC has not ruled out academic researchers being permitted to
> access private posts, photographs, videos, Messenger chats and other
> private communications and that the question of how to robustly anonymize
> such content for the initiative (given that even blurring faces in a
> photograph cannot prevent the identities of the depicted individuals from
> being reconstructed in all cases, video anonymization is even more
> difficult and even anonymized text chats can still reveal considerable PII)
> is still unknown.
> 
> As the first studies emerge from the initiative that make heavy use of
> private content that Facebook's two billion users thought were private, it
> is unclear whether public reaction will yield any changes to this program
> or lead to its discontinuation in its present form.
> 
> There is also the question of how replication will be managed on a platform
> as fluid as Facebook, especially given that activists may engage in
> systematic deletions when papers are published that expose and document
> certain of their communicative patterns. Either replication must accept
> that key content may be systematically deleted in some cases (especially
> for controversial high profile studies that are the kind that might provoke
> such a response) or Facebook will have to permanently archive user data,
> removing the right of users to delete or control access to their content,
> which creates an uncertain legal landscape.
> 
> SSRC also did not rule out permitting researchers to actively manipulate
> production interfaces and algorithms for actual users during an active
> election (ie, an algorithmic change that would test whether favoring
> certain content had an impact on voter behavior), nor did it rule out
> permitting researchers in one country to perform such active
> experimentation during another country's elections.
> 
> The first contested election where you've got papers being published in a
> foreign country documenting active modification to Facebook during the
> election and claiming that some of those changes altered voter behavior,
> there is an increased likelihood of governmental intervention in this
> initiative, especially in an era when candidates and campaigns increasingly
> blame Facebook for unexpected voter outcomes.
> 
> There is also the issue that while proposals will be directly funded by a
> small set of funding agencies, it is extremely likely that research labs
> with substantial DOD funding (whether DARPA, IARPA, NRL, ARL, and foreign
> counterparts globally) will submit proposals stemming from that work. For
> example, DOD-funded academic work in the social sciences has routinely
> cited private Facebook Messenger and post data as being critical to
> increasing the accuracy of their models. One can easily imagine labs
> participating in IARPA or DARPA programs submitting proposals to the SSRC
> initiative that extend that IARPA/DARPA work to private Facebook user data.
> SSRC offered that there are not presently any restrictions on this codified
> into the initiative.
> 
> So, while I know this initiative has received a lot of fawning press and
> academic reaction, its important that we not lose sight of the ethical
> components of the initiative, especially given that nearly the entirety of
> the ethical underpinnings are, in the words of SSRC, "TBD":
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/04/12/is-facebooks-new-academic-initiative-even-more-frightening-than-its-own-research/
> 
> 
> 
> Kalev
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 11:09 AM, Steven Clift <slc at publicus.net> wrote:
> 
>> In recent weeks, you've probably heard <http://po.st/chronphilsocmedia>
>> about Facebook's connection <http://po.st/zucksocmediademo> to an
>> independent
>> foundation funded <http://po.st/socdemknight> (multiple foundations
>> <http://po.st/socdemhewlett>) effort to research the impact
>> <http://po.st/socdemssrc> of social media on elections and democracy.
>> That's great. There is even a related conference this week
>> <http://po.st/socdemconference> with an amazing list of academic speakers.
>>
>> I am interested opening up digital channels of communication to help
>> researchers hear from practitioners to help generate more actionable
>> research related to social media and democracy.
>>
>> Whether you are a democracy/civic engagement practitioner, a political
>> campaign operative, or an activist seeking to influence people or your
>> government, what is happening *now* with social media and democracy that
>> needs solid research? If you care about useful research, this group is for
>> you.
>>
>> Perhaps you are within government having used social media to help win an
>> election or you are in media looking for trends or digital options to boost
>> journalism's role in the future of democracy, then this *off the record*
>> group on social media and democracy research is for you too.
>>
>> (If you know practitioners active in the digital democracy/politics/media
>> space who also care about the big picture as well as "winning" with the
>> latest tactic or tool, please pass this invite along.)
>>
>> Researchers invited!
>>
>> This is about creating an effective digital feedback loop. I am interested
>> in how researchers can more effectively engage and access digital
>> practitioners across all the major sectors of democracy - government,
>> media, campaigns and elections, advocacy and legislative bodies, and more.
>> Since Facebook is the main target of a wave of research funding, let's
>> build a digital bridge between research and practice that people actually
>> use on that platform. So, if you do research in this space, please apply to
>> join us. Once we reach 100 charter members, then we will switch to a member
>> referral required to join process (which will be crucial to ensure
>> participation versus free riding.)
>>
>> So, if you are interested in joining, you *must* answer the join request
>> survey questions before your application will be approved:
>> http://facebook.com/groups/socialmediademocracy
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Steven Clift
>>
>> P.S. If you just prefer light reading and not participating actively,
>> everyone is welcome to join my 7500+ member Civic Technology and Open
>> Government Facebook Group. It is a very active group with daily posts:
>> http://facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup
>>
>>
>> Steven Clift  -  Executive Director, E-Democracy.org
>>     clift at e-democracy.org  -  +1 612 234 7072
>>     http://twitter.com/democracy
>>
>> Join in: http://facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup
>> Digital engagement for your org via E-Democracy:
>>     http://po.st/engageclift
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-- 
Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication
University of Oslo
<http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>

Postboks 1093
Blindern 0317
Oslo, Norway
c.m.ess at media.uio.no