{"id":262543,"date":"2021-08-04T06:20:10","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T06:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationaus.com\/?p=20780"},"modified":"2021-08-04T06:20:10","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T06:20:10","slug":"facebook-blocks-researchers-from-scrutinising-its-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/08\/04\/facebook-blocks-researchers-from-scrutinising-its-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook blocks researchers from scrutinising its data"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook has suspended<\/strong> the accounts of US researchers who had been scrutinising the tech giant\u2019s role in misinformation, digital advertising and election campaigns with a tool that catalogued the social media giant’s targeted ads.<\/p>\n

The company said its users\u2019 privacy was at risk from the researchers\u2019 work, despite it not collecting personal information.<\/p>\n

Researchers from the New York University\u2019s Centre for Cybersecurity have been studying how Facebook\u2019s online advertising and targeting works, including developing and promoting an extension which copies the advertisements users see on Facebook and YouTube and adds them to a database.<\/p>\n

The extension, known as Ad Observatory, and associated work, is an attempt to improve the transparency of tech giant\u2019s advertising tactics, which are under increased scrutiny amid misinformation on the platforms.<\/p>\n

\"Mark
Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Image: Anthony Quintano\/Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Wednesday, Facebook disabled the accounts, apps, pages and platform access associated with NYU\u2019s Ad Observatory Project and its operators, saying their \u201cscraping\u201d work was not compliant with the company\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n

The ban includes the use of Facebook’s own reporting tools, widely used by researchers to monitor advertising and public content on the platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the Ad Observatory project may be well-intentioned, the ongoing and continued violations of protections against scraping cannot be ignored and should be remediated,\u201d Facebook product management director Mike Clark said in a company blog post.<\/p>\n

The researchers said the ban effectively impedes their scrutiny of Facebook, including their access to Facebook Ad Library data and Crowdtangle.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last several years, we\u2019ve used this access to uncover systemic flaws in the Facebook Ad Library, identify misinformation in political ads including many sowing distrust in our election system, and to study Facebook\u2019s apparent amplification of partisan misinformation,\u201d NYU PhD candidate Laura Edelson, one of the researchers, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy suspending our accounts, Facebook has effectively ended all this work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Facebook defended the ban, saying it had worked with the researchers for months to provide \u201cprecise access\u201d to data in a privacy protected way, including 2020 US election advertising data. It claimed the Ad Observatory extension was scraping data, including of Facebook users who had not installed it or consented to collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe researchers knowingly violated our Terms against scraping \u2014 which we went to great lengths to explain to them over the past year,\u201d Mr Clark said.<\/p>\n

The Ad Observer extension does not ask for or collect identifying information but users can voluntarily provide basic demographic information to help, according to the researchers which have published the extension code on Github.<\/p>\n

NYU researcher Damon McCoy attacked the platform\u2019s decision to block independent researchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is disgraceful that Facebook is attempting to quash legitimate research that is informing the public about disinformation on their platform,\u201d Mr McCoy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith its platform awash in vaccine disinformation and partisan campaigns to manipulate the public, Facebook should be welcoming independent research, not shutting it down. Allowing Facebook to dictate who can investigate what is occurring on its platform is not in the public interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cFacebook should not be able to cynically invoke user privacy to shut down research that puts them in an unflattering light, particularly when the \u2018users\u2019 Facebook is talking about are advertisers who have consented to making their ads public.<\/p>\n

The post Facebook blocks researchers from scrutinising its data<\/a> appeared first on InnovationAus<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on InnovationAus<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook has suspended the accounts of US researchers who had been scrutinising the tech giant\u2019s role in misinformation, digital advertising and election campaigns with a tool that catalogued the social media giant\u2019s targeted ads. The company said its users\u2019 privacy was at risk from the researchers\u2019 work, despite it not collecting personal information. Researchers from…<\/p>\n

The post Facebook blocks researchers from scrutinising its data<\/a> appeared first on InnovationAus<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[392],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262625,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262543\/revisions\/262625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}