[Air-L] Birds of a Feather: How can internet researchers and Mozilla collaborate?

[Stefan Baack]

Hi everyone,

I would like to propose a 'Birds of a Feather' meeting for anyone 
interested in discussing how internet researchers and civil society (and 
Mozilla in particular) can collaborate.

I'm currently working in between both of these worlds: I work at the 
Mozilla Foundation as a research and data analyst for the Internet 
Health Report (https://internethealthreport.org/) and as an associate 
researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute. There have been some 
developments at Mozilla that show a great potential for a more intense 
collaboration that would benefit both:

- Mozilla collaborates with researchers to demand better access to 
Facebook and YouTube data to improve public oversight. For example, in 
collaboration with researchers, it developed guidelines for a better Ad 
Archive API around the EU elections 
(https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/03/27/facebook-and-google-this-is-what-an-effective-ad-archive-api-looks-like/). 
With the prominence of digital methods at AOIR this year, I’m sure 
there is a potential for similar campaigns in the future.
- The Mozilla Foundation is now concentrating their advocacy efforts on 
'Trustworthy AI', a theme that overlaps with much of the research 
presented at AOIR 
(https://marksurman.commons.ca/2019/08/28/update-digging-deeper-on-trustworthy-ai/).
- In addition, the Internet Health Report (where I’m involved) 
frequently relies on the work of internet researchers, but it targets a 
non-academic audience.

I hope to learn more about how the relationship between Mozilla and 
academia can be further developed for mutual benefit. Are you interested 
in discussing how academia and civil society can better collaborate, and 
perhaps already have some ideas you would like to share? Are you perhaps 
in a similar position as me and would like to share some experience? Or 
are you just curious if your research would be interesting for an 
organization like Mozilla? Whatever your interest is, everyone is 
welcome to join! Just send a message directly to me and let me know if 
Thursday or Friday evening is better for you. If enough people are 
interested, I will organize a venue on the date that works for most 
people.

Best,
Stefan
-- 
Research and data analyst | Internet Health Report | Mozilla | Twitter: 
https://twitter.com/tweetbaack