[Air-L] "Facebook's data changes will hamper research and oversight, academics warn"

[Stuart Shulman]

The Facebook data access question is extremely muddy, especially with
election tampering, hate speech, and other Facebook-enabled challenges.
Students of policy, @lessig, and tech history know that out of muddles we
always get new markets, laws, norms, and architecture. While imperfect in
the short run, over time, the net effect is likely to be a satisficing
balance that keeps the ecosystem growing and evolving in ways nobody can
accurately predict. In many moments, we will hope for something better and
live with something far less than optimal. The questions of who can access
what data are incredibly complicated. The wild west of Facebook's open API
ended back in 2014. There were serious and possibly history altering
problems unleashed by too much unfettered access to all that Facebook data.

I remain optimistic that the efforts ongoing to create a system for valid
academic research with transparent processes will yield something better.
We tried to do this via the Big Boulder Initiative and fell very far short.
Now there is a new effort led by Gary King at Harvard, a champion of
dataset preservation and replication studies, that seems to have some
traction inside Facebook. I wrote about it in an open letter to our users
on the company blog:

https://discovertext.com/2018/04/18/an-open-letter-to-discovertext-users/

Industry will get this wrong several times before they get it closer to
right. Nobody fully knows what right is. A regular and transparent dialogue
between industry and academia is key. Perhaps some sort of legal "special
master" for reviewing social data use cases, data preparation and
de-identification standards, and what counts as authentic academic research
will emerge with respect to social data. There is a needed gatekeeper
function to guard against further abuses. This is an age of digital
credentials. We should probably start using them in more creative ways.
Peer review inside foundations and science funding organizations will play
a role. However, in the murkiest use cases, the political scientist in me
asks: who or what governs?

~Stu

Stu Shulman <https://twitter.com/StuartWShulman>MA Olympic Development
Program (ODP), Assistant Coach
Region I ODP, 2005 Boys ID Camp Staff Coach
NEFC-West 2008 Boys, Head Coach




On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 7:38 AM, Marisa von Bülow <marisavonbulow at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Yes, thanks, Axel and others, for doing this!
> Although the list of initial signatories has mostly researchers from
> Europe, the U.S., Australia and Canada, the issues mentioned and the
> arguments made resonate with the challenges those of us have faced in the
> "periphery" of the academic world, with even less resources and no access
> to initiatives such as the one Facebook announced (and which the text
> rightly criticizes).
>
> I have signed this important call and will circulate it among other Latin
> American scholars, so that they can sign it as well. It would be important
> to reach out to scholars from other countries and regions of the world.
>
> Best,
>
> Marisa
>
> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 10:16 PM, Michael T Zimmer <zimmerm at uwm.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > ICYMI, numerous internet researchers — lead by AoIR president Axel Bruns
> —
> > recently published an op-ed warning that Facebook’s recent changes that
> > restrict access to data via APIs threaten to hamper research and
> oversight
> > of the social network (and likely won't do much to protect user privacy).
> >
> > Read the op-ed at Internet Policy Review: https://policyreview.info/
> > articles/news/facebook-shuts-gate-after-horse-has-bolted-
> > and-hurts-real-research-process/786
> >
> > And related coverage at The Guardian: https://policyreview.info/
> > articles/news/facebook-shuts-gate-after-horse-has-bolted-
> > and-hurts-real-research-process/786
> >
> > Thanks, Axel, for leading this charge!
> >
> > Michael Zimmer
> >
> >
> > --
> > Michael Zimmer, PhD
> > Associate Professor, School of Information Studies
> > Director, Center for Information Policy Research
> > University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
> >
> > e: zimmerm at uwm.edu<mailto:zimmerm at uwm.edu>
> > t: @michaelzimmer
> > w: www.michaelzimmer.org<http://www.michaelzimmer.org>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > http://www.aoir.org/
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Marisa von Bülow
> Professora Associada/Professor
> Instituto de Ciência Política/Political Science Institute
> IPOL - UnB/University of Brasilia
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