New Social Media Transparency Bill Would Force Facebook To Open Up To Researchers (theverge.com) 22
A bipartisan group of US senators have announced a new bill that would require social media companies to share platform data with independent researchers. The Verge reports: The bill was announced Thursday by Democratic senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and also Rob Portman (R-OH), a Republican. Named the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA), it would establish new rules compelling social media platforms to share data with "qualified researchers," defined as university-affiliated researchers pursuing projects that have been approved by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Under the terms of the bill, platforms would be bound to comply with requests for data once research was approved by the NSF. Failing to provide data to a qualifying project would result in the platform losing the immunities provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. "The PATA act is a truly comprehensive platform transparency proposal," said Laura Edelson, a PhD candidate at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and lead researcher at NYU's Cybersecurity for Democracy project, in an email to The Verge. "If passed this legislation would provide a real pathway for researchers to better understand online harms and start coming up with solutions."
gee willickers (Score:2, Insightful)
Only this time it'll be legislated to make sure only "qualified researchers" have the data.
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The government cannot take private property without just compensation.
Err...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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However, it is nothing more than reversing the burden of proof in a criminal charge.
Evil, and at odds with the constitution, probably. However, in most states, the prosecution still must, at a bare minimum, by a preponderance of the evidence (and in some cases, the somewhat higher standard of clear and convincing) show that the assets are the result of criminal activity.
Now of course, you are going to reply that Facebook's activities are illegal, but I will ignor
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Those companies are receiving immunities provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They are not responsible for some of the same requirements as other content dissemination providers like newspapers, radio, and television networks. If the law passes, they would be required to share some of their internal data with “qualified researchers,” defined as university-affiliated researchers pursuing projects that have been approved by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
They have a
government approved researchers... (Score:2)
"start coming up with solutions" (Score:3)
Facebook is a private company worth close to a $1T. Do you seriously think it will listen to external researchers because of some perceived harms?
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Facebook is a private company worth close to a $1T. Do you seriously think it will listen to external researchers because of some perceived harms?
Why do so many people think that companies are above or beyond the law? Let me help you with this. If the government told facebook by passing a law that told it to listen to external researchers, guess what is going to happen? Facebook, or any company, is going to do exactly what its told.
Of course they might challenge this law in court but if the courts uphold it, they will follow the law. Corporations exist at the whelm of governments. They will follow the law or they will cease to exist as a corp
Re: "start coming up with solutions" (Score:2, Funny)
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The Courts are going to force Meta to do what Meta wishes to do anyway, then Meta pretends to protest, gets the DA a cushy book deal for their effort, Meta becomes even more abusive of their users while locking their competitors out of the market!
already found the loophole (Score:2)
Re: already found the loophole (Score:1)
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NSA has access to the internet backbone, if Comcast can catch illegal file sharing in real-time, what couldn't the NSA do? I'm sure the limiting factor is more along the lines of having enough processing power to process the flow. The limit is much lower than the NSA pretends while still being much higher than we think.
...to do Facebook's job for them? (Score:3)
Facebook has repeatedly shown that it can't do the right thing & consistently makes bad decisions, i.e. those that put profits ahead of any considerations of harm done to its users, so now it's time to at least have some reasonably objective analysis to publicly tell them what they're doing wrong & possibly offer some solutions to fix it. So does this mean that the tax payer is stepping in to pay for experts to do Facebook's job for them? Well, Zuckerberg, it looks like they don't like your style & they can block you.
And any of you ninnies that are going to start braying about 'freedumbs' & the gubbermint invading your privacy, please note that some years ago Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA, among others, are already paying Facebook for unfettered access & custom developed search tools to all Facebook's user data anyway.
Where is the compensation? (Score:1)
Governments demanding tech companies (and not just Facebook) hand over their data seems to becoming more and more common these days. What I don't get is why these seizures don't count (in the US at least) as "private property be taken for public use" under the 5th amendment, requiring "just compensation" for the market value of said data. Many companies' data sets, after all, are likely more valuable than the land the company physically sits on. And the seizure of that data amounts to as much or more of
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If Biden can take a Landlord's right to evict non-paying tenant without tripping over the 5th amendment's "taking" clause, what chance does your "taking" data have?
Unconstitutional (Score:1)
that's tranparency? (Score:2)
Did my grocery store tell them what I just bought?
I want to know about every single time that happens, so I can yell at every business that does it.