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@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@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@uwm.edu<mailto:zimmerm@uwm.edu> t: @michaelzimmer w: www.michaelzimmer.org<http://www.michaelzimmer.org>

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Marisa von Bülow Professora Associada/Professor Instituto de Ciência Política/Political Science Institute IPOL - UnB/University of Brasilia _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

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