Facebook Said It Would Give Detailed Data To Academics. They're Still Waiting. (buzzfeednews.com) 16
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2018, Facebook announced a partnership to provide data to academics to "help people better understand the broader impact of social media on democracy -- as well as improve our work to protect the integrity of elections." In April of this year, the first batch of winning proposals was announced. "The urgency of this research cannot be overstated," wrote the founders of Social Science One, the entity that operates the program. It describes itself as "an LLC operating on a not-for-profit basis." But as of today, many of the academic teams remain on hold because Facebook has yet to provide key data required to conduct research into sharing patterns of fake and polarized news, Facebook interactions related to the 2018 Italian election, and disinformation campaigns in the recent German election, among other projects. Facebook has also declined to provide some of the data it originally said it would offer, citing privacy concerns.
As frustrations mount, researchers and the major foundations that fund their work fear that the ambitious project may not survive, multiple people told BuzzFeed News. A source with knowledge of discussions between the key parties involved in the project said the funders -- which include the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, Omidyar Network, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation -- are now discussing ways to increase the pressure on the social media giant.
As frustrations mount, researchers and the major foundations that fund their work fear that the ambitious project may not survive, multiple people told BuzzFeed News. A source with knowledge of discussions between the key parties involved in the project said the funders -- which include the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, Omidyar Network, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation -- are now discussing ways to increase the pressure on the social media giant.
FaceBook (Score:2)
I forget... what service do they provide society?
Re: (Score:1)
Fake & Polarized news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm...while "fake news" is slightly more obvious than "polarized news", it's none too clear just what FB is supposed to be supplying.
Is it "polarized news" if the NYTimes blathers on about "assault weapons" (for which read: underpowered semiauto rifles)?
How about when our newspapers blather on about how (or whether) AGW is being overstated?
How about when 0.0005% of our population gets sick from vaping? Is that "fake news" or "polarized news", or just clickbait news?
In other words, perhaps FB is having a harder time categorizing things than they thought they would when they offered to do this.
Facebook is 100,000,000,000% fake (Score:2)
There, job done.
Can I have those research grants please? {only joking}
No, no, I think you misunderstood. (Score:2)
What they actually said was they'll give detailed data to Cambridge Analytica.
There are also other types of data available (Score:1)
"Social Science One"? (Score:3)
The headline-- which msmash has simply copied from BuzzFeedNews-- contains a rather large number of planted assumptions: It assumes that Facebook handing over these data sets is a good thing, that it is serving the interests of "transparency" and "social good", that there are no privacy issues here, and that the only possible reason for the delay is that they are Up To Something.
I suggest you skip over the BuzzFeedNews coverage and go straight to the website for "Social Science One", which seems to be the organization at the core of this project. Here are a couple of brief quotes from the website:
"Social Science One implements a new type of partnership between academic researchers and the private sector to advance the goals of social science in understanding and solving society’s greatest challenges. Our mutually incentive-compatible approach enables academics to analyze and use the increasingly rich troves of information amassed by companies to address societal issues, while protecting their respective interests and ensuring the highest standards of privacy and data security..."
"...The commission identifies relevant datasets and issues a series of Requests For Proposals; outside scholars submit proposals, which are selected on the basis of academic and social merit (excluding proposals which violate privacy or existing legal agreements/obligations, infringe on ongoing investigations, or put a company at a competitive disadvantage)."
My gut reaction is as follows:
1) I have no clear idea WTF any of this means;
2) It sounds like something the Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil would put out as a press release.
What's needed here is some actual journalism to figure out what the hell the proposed project is, and what agendas lie behind it, and what the privacy implications are. Hopefully an actual journalist will get to work figuring it all out. But you're not going to find the answers here, and definitely not on something called "BuzzFeedNews".
Re: (Score:2)
My gut reaction is as follows:
1) I have no clear idea WTF any of this means;
2) It sounds like
Considering #1, just stop there and don't try to `splain it to us.
Re: (Score:3)
Here's another quote, this time from George Orwell: "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink".
The quote is taken from his classic essay "Politics and the English Language", which perhaps you will take a moment to read one day.
Consider some of the tortured phrases that appear on the organization's website. "A mutually incentive-c
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, you still didn't understand.
But, you still `splained as hard as you code. Swim, cuttlefish, swim.
Nothing unusual (Score:1)
Having been in this position many times, waiting a year for data is by no means unusual in data-centric academics. Getting the data for my most recent diabetes study took just slightly over 2 years.
No one in academics expect a fast process. Whether that's a good thing or not I won't mention.
(it sucks)
Re: (Score:2)
Either post as plain text, or use the html tax that are listed below the posting block: Allowed HTML
Re: (Score:2)
When I hit return twice to write a new paragraph (and add some visually pleasing white space), Slashdot always used to include my paragraphs in my post. But now when I try to make a post, everything is crammed onto one line, and my paragraphs are ignored.
Type "p" enclosed in angle brackets (aka, greater than and less than symbols) for a paragraph break.
PS This post has several paragraphs in, but I bet they won't be there after I submit.
they were there for me.