[Air-L] Fwd: CDT Report: Making Transparency Meaningful

[Dhanaraj Thakur]

Hi all,

I'm writing to let you know about a report that CDT published just 
before the new year called /Making Transparency Meaningful: A Framework 
for Policymakers 
<https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/12132021-CDT-Making-Transparency-Meaningful-A-Framework-for-Policymakers-final.pdf>/. 
The report lays out a conceptual framework for transparency about 
practices that affect internet users’ speech, access to information, and 
privacy from government surveillance. A section of the report about 
researcher access to data 
<https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-21-FX-Transparency-Framework-brief-Researcher-Access-to-Data-final.pdf> 
held by online hosts of user-generated content may be of particular 
interest to members of this network.
The purpose of /Making Transparency Meaningful /is to provide a 
structure for understanding the big picture of technology company 
transparency, and how to approach the critical decisions that must be 
made if we are to achieve meaningful transparency by, and about, 
technology companies. The report addresses four categories of transparency:

 1.

    Transparency reports that provide aggregated data and qualitative
    information about moderation actions, disclosures, and other
    practices concerning user generated content and government
    surveillance;

 2.

    User notifications about government demands for their data and
    moderation of their content;

 3.

    Access to data held by intermediaries for independent researchers,
    public policy advocates, and journalists; and

 4.

    Public-facing analysis, assessments, and audits of technology
    company practices with respect to user speech and privacy from
    government surveillance.


As we explain in the accompanying blog post 
<https://cdt.org/insights/new-cdt-report-provides-guide-for-policymakers-on-making-transparency-meaningful/>, 
/Making Transparency Meaningful/ is relevant to many ongoing policy 
conversations around transparency, and the numerous transparency bills 
from recent months (including researcher access to data bills) in the 
U.S. and EU like the PACT Act, Algorithmic Justice and Online Platform 
Transparency Act, Social Media DATA Act, Platform Accountability and 
Transparency Act, Digital Services Act, and many more.

The full report is available on CDT’s website 
<https://cdt.org/insights/report-making-transparency-meaningful-a-framework-for-policymakers/>, 
where we also have links to each of the four individual sections if you 
want to look at just one specific topic.


take care,
Dhanaraj