News & Commentary

From Kamala Harris memes to the nationalization of elections to election denialism, part three of our new series highlights several areas we’re looking at this year.

From foreign influence campaigns to the role of WhatsApp to social media data access, part two of our new series highlights several areas we’re looking at this year.

Although portability is often considered through a competition lens, policymakers and companies should understand its potential impact on policy-relevant research efforts and ensure that portability can support research on the impacts of digital platforms and services.

Two cases before the Supreme Court will address Texas & Florida laws aiming to restrict content moderation on social media. The Court's rulings could also have widespread implications for the government's ability to mandate transparency and data access from platforms.

A look at our top articles, events, and more from the past year.

When the Supreme Court considers the Florida and Texas laws, it should craft rulings that leave ample room for legislative and regulatory efforts to mandate transparency and access to data.

Just like social media, a key challenge to studying the public's use of generative AI is the lack of data. AI companies could solve this by making it easier for users to donate their data to research.

Unprecedented research in the context of the 2020 presidential election reveals algorithms are extremely influential in people’s on-platform experiences and there is significant ideological segregation in political news exposure but, among consenting study participants, changes to critical aspects of the algorithms that determine what they saw did not sway political attitudes.

In response to the European Commission's Digital Services Act, we submitted comments highlighting the importance of data access for independent research and suggested standards for data access mechanisms.

Elon Musk has said that increasing transparency on Twitter is one of his highest priorities, but his actions show otherwise.

What we can (and can't) learn from Twitter's partial open-sourcing of its recommendation algorithm.

A look at our top articles, events, and more from the past year.

We still don’t know the extent of what Musk has actually changed within Twitter. But without mandated data access for researchers, we risk never knowing their impact on society as well.

As 2022 candidates embrace Trump's Big Lie, social platforms are reducing election integrity efforts. What should they do to safeguard the midterms?

Ahead of a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on platform transparency, we submitted a letter outlining the type of research questions we want to answer — and the social media data we need to answer them.

There are three areas — content moderation, transparency, and data access — to watch closely as Musk takes ownership of Twitter.

A look at our top articles, events, and more from the past year.

Congress should mandate an unprecedented corporate data-sharing program to enable outside, independent researchers to conduct the kinds of analysis on social media platforms that firm insiders routinely perform.

With access to these documents, scholars could support the media, public, and policymakers in identifying where Facebook’s internal research is conclusive, what inferences can be drawn, which topics require more evidence and future research, and what that research should be.

As the Facebook Papers revelations continue, it’s critical for the government, through legislation or regulation, to require social media platforms to be more transparent and open up more data to outside researchers.

A new book argues academic researchers should have more access to the data locked inside Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.

Our co-director Joshua A. Tucker testified before the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.