{"id":14912,"date":"2019-04-29T18:02:44","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T18:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/facebook-accused-of-blocking-wider-efforts-to-study-its-ad-platform.html"},"modified":"2019-04-29T18:02:44","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T18:02:44","slug":"facebook-accused-of-blocking-wider-efforts-to-study-its-ad-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-accused-of-blocking-wider-efforts-to-study-its-ad-platform.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook accused of blocking wider efforts to study its ad platform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook <\/a> has been accused of blocking the ability of independent researchers to effectively study how political disinformation flows across its ad platform.<\/p>\n

Adverts that the social network\u2019s business is designed to monetize have \u2014 at very least \u2014 the potential to influence people and push voters\u2019 buttons, as the Cambridge Anaytica Facebook data misuse scandal highlighted last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since that story exploded into a major global scandal for Facebook the company has faced a chorus of calls for increased transparency and accountability from policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

It has responded with lashings of obfuscation<\/a>, misdirection<\/a> and worse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among Facebook\u2019s less controversial efforts to counter the threat that disinformation poses to its business are what it bills \u201celection security\u201d initiatives, such as identity checks for political advertisers. Even as these efforts have looked hopelessly flat-footed, patchy and piecemeal in the face of concerned attempts to use its tools to amplify disinformation in markets around the world.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more significantly \u2014 under amped up political pressure \u2014 Facebook has launched a searchable ad archive. And access to Facebook ad data certainly has the potential to let external researchers hold the company\u2019s claims to account.<\/p>\n

But only if access is not equally flat-footed, patchy and piecemeal, with the risk that selective access to ad data ends up being just as controlled and manipulated as everything else on Facebook\u2019s platform.<\/p>\n

So far Facebook\u2019s efforts on this front continue to attract criticism for falling way short.<\/p>\n

\u201cthe opposite of what they claim to be doing\u2026 \u201c<\/h2>\n

The company opened access to an ad archive API<\/a> last month, via which it provides rate-limited access to a keyword search tool that lets researchers query historical ad data. (Researchers first need to pass an identity check process and agree to the Facebook developer platform terms of service before they can access the API.)<\/p>\n

However a review of the tool by not-for-profit Mozilla rates the API as a lot of weak-sauce \u2018transparency-washing\u2019 \u2014 rather than a good faith attempt to support public interest research which could genuinely help quantify the societal costs of Facebook\u2019s ad business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is, the API doesn\u2019t provide necessary data. And it is designed in ways that hinders the important work of researchers, who inform the public and policymakers about the nature and consequences of misinformation,\u201d it writes in a blog post<\/a> where it argues that Facebook\u2019s ad API meets just two out of five minimum standards it previously set out<\/a> \u2014 backed by a group of sixty academics, hailing from research institutions including Oxford University, the University of Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, and many more.<\/p>\n

Instead of providing comprehensive political advertising content, as the experts argue a good open API must, Mozilla writes that \u201cit\u2019s impossible to determine if Facebook\u2019s API is comprehensive, because it requires you to use keywords to search the database\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not provide you with all ad data and allow you to filter it down using specific criteria or filters, the way nearly all other online databases do. And since you cannot download data in bulk and ads in the API are not given a unique identifier, Facebook makes it impossible to get a complete picture of all of the ads running on their platform (which is exactly the opposite of what they claim to be doing<\/a>),\u201d it adds.<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s tool is also criticized for failing to provide targeting criteria and engagement information for ads \u2014 thereby making it impossible for researchers to understand what advertisers on its platform are paying the company to reach; as well as how effective (or otherwise) these Facebook ads might be.<\/p>\n

This exact issue was raised with a number of Facebook executives by British parliamentarians last year, during the course of a multi-month investigation into online disinformation. At one point Facebook\u2019s CTO was asked point blank whether the company would be providing ad targeting data as part of planned political ad transparency measures \u2014 only to provide a fuzzy answer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course there are plenty of reasons why Facebook might be reluctant to enable truly independent outsiders to quantify the efficacy of political ads on its platform and therefore, by extension, its ad business.<\/p>\n

Including, of course, the specific scandalous example of the Cambridge Analytica <\/a> data heist itself, which was carried out by an academic, called Dr Aleksandr Kogan, then attached to Cambridge University, who used his access to Facebook\u2019s developer platform to deploy a quiz app designed to harvest user data without (most) people\u2019s knowledge or consent in order to sell the info to the disgraced digital campaign company (which worked on various U.S. campaigns, including the presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump).<\/p>\n

But that just highlights the scale of the problem of so much market power being concentrated in the hands of a single adtech giant which has zero incentives to voluntarily report wholly transparent metrics about its true reach and power to influence the world\u2019s 2BN+ Facebook users.<\/p>\n

Add to that, in a typical crisis PR response to multiple bad headlines last year, Facebook repeatedly sought to paint Kogan as a rogue actor \u2014 suggesting he was not at all a representative sample of the advertiser activity on its platform.<\/p>\n

So, by the same token, any effort by Facebook to tar genuine research as similarly risky rightly deserves a robust rebuttal. The historical actions of one individual, albeit yes an academic, shouldn\u2019t be used as an excuse to shut the door to a respected research community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current API design puts huge constraints on researchers, rather than allowing them to discover what is really happening on the platform,\u201d Mozilla argues, suggesting the various limitations imposed by Facebook \u2014 including search rate limits \u2014 means it could take researchers \u201cmonths\u201d to evaluate ads in a particular region or on a certain topic.<\/p>\n

Again, from Facebook\u2019s point of view, there\u2019s plenty to be gained by delaying the release of any more platform usage skeletons from its bulging historical data closet. (The \u2018historical app audit\u2019 it announced with much fanfare last year continues to trickle along at a disclosure pace of its own choosing<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The two areas where Facebook\u2019s API is given a tentative thumbs up by Mozilla is in providing access to up-to-date and historical data (the seven year availability of the data is badged \u201cpretty good\u201d); and for the API being accessible to and shareable with the general public (at least once they\u2019ve gone through Facebook\u2019s identity confirm process).<\/p>\n

Though in both cases Mozilla also cautions it\u2019s still possible that further blocking tactics might emerge \u2014 depending on how Facebook supports\/constrains access going forward.<\/p>\n

It does not look entirely coincidental that the criticism of Facebook\u2019s API for being \u201cinadequate\u201d has landed on the same day that Facebook has pushed out publicity<\/a> about opening up access to a database of URLs its users have linked to since 2017 \u2014 which is being made available to a select group of academics.<\/p>\n

In that case 60 researchers, drawn from 30 institutions, who have been chosen by the U.S.\u2019 Social Science Research Council.<\/p>\n

Notably the Facebook-selected research dataset entirely skips past the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when Russian election propaganda infamously targeted hundreds of millions of U.S. Facebook voters.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s 2016 Brexit vote is also not covered by the January 2017 onwards scope of the dataset.<\/p>\n

Though Facebook does say it is \u201ccommitted to advancing this important initiative\u201d, suggesting it could expand the scope of the dataset and\/or who can access it at some unspecified future time.<\/p>\n

It also claims \u2018privacy and security\u2019 considerations are holding up efforts to release research data quicker.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand many stakeholders are eager for data to be made available as quickly as possible,\u201d it writes. \u201cWhile we remain committed to advancing this important initiative, Facebook is also committed to taking the time necessary to incorporate the highest privacy protections and build a data infrastructure that provides data in a secure manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Europe, Facebook committed itself to supporting good faith, public interest research when it signed up to the European Commission\u2019s <\/a> Code of Practice on disinformation last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The EU-wide Code includes a specific commitment that platform signatories \u201cempower the research community to monitor online disinformation through privacy-compliant access to the platforms\u2019 data\u201d, in addition to other actions such as tackling fake accounts and making political ads and issue based ads more transparent.<\/p>\n

However here, too, Facebook appears to be using \u2018privacy-compliance\u2019 as an excuse to water down the level of transparency that it\u2019s offering to external researchers.<\/p>\n

TechCrunch understands that, in private, Facebook has responded to concerns raised about its ad API\u2019s limits by saying it cannot provide researchers with more fulsome data about ads \u2014 including the targeting criteria for ads \u2014 because doing so would violate its commitments under the EU\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework.<\/p>\n

That argument is of course pure \u2018cakeism\u2019. Aka Facebook is trying to have its cake and eat it where privacy and data protection is concerned.<\/p>\n

In plainer English, Facebook is trying to use European privacy regulation to shield its business from deeper and more meaningful scrutiny. Yet this is the very same company \u2014 and here comes the richly fudgy cakeism \u2014 that elsewhere contends<\/a> personal data its platform pervasively harvests on users\u2019 interests is not personal data. (In that case Facebook has also been found allowing sensitive inferred data to be used for targeting ads<\/a> \u2014 which experts suggest violates the GDPR.)<\/p>\n

So, tl;dr, Facebook can be found seizing upon privacy regulation when it suits its business interests to do so \u2014 i.e. to try to avoid the level of transparency necessary for external researchers to evaluate the impact its ad platform and business has on wider society and democracy.<\/p>\n

Yet argues against GDPR when the privacy regulation stands in the way of monetizing users\u2019 eyeballs by stuffing them with intrusive ads targeted by pervasive surveillance of everyone\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n

Such contradictions have not at all escaped privacy experts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe GDPR in practice \u2014 not just Facebook\u2019s usual weak interpretation of it \u2014 does not stop organisations from publishing aggregate information, such as which demographics or geographic areas saw or were targeted for certain adverts, where such data is not fine-grained enough to pick an individual out,\u201d says Michael Veale, a research fellow at the Alan Turing Institute \u2014 and one of ten researchers who co-wrote the Mozilla-backed guidelines for what makes an effective ad API.<\/p>\n

\u201cFacebook would require a lawful basis to do the aggregation for the purpose of publishing, which would not be difficult, as providing data to enable public scrutiny of the legality and ethics of data processing is a legitimate interest if I have ever seen one,\u201d he also tells us. \u201cFacebook constantly reuse data for different and unclearly related purposes, and so claiming they could legally not reuse data to put their own activities in the spotlight is, frankly, pathetic.<\/p>\n

\u201cStatistical agencies have long been familiar with techniques such as differential privacy which stop aggregated information leaking information about specific individuals. Many differential privacy researchers already work at Facebook, so the expertise is clearly there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems more likely that Facebook doesn\u2019t want to release information on targeting as it would likely embarrass [it] and their customers,\u201d Veale adds. \u201cIt is also possible that Facebook has confidentiality agreements with specific advertisers who may be caught red-handed for practices that go beyond public expectations. Data protection law isn\u2019t blocking the disinfecting light of transparency, Facebook is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the URL database that Facebook has released to selected researchers today, Veale says it\u2019s a welcome step \u2014 while pointing to further limitations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good thing that Facebook is starting to work more openly on research questions, particularly those which might point to problematic use of this platform. The initial cohort appears to be geographically diverse, which is refreshing \u2014 although appears to lack any academics from Indian universities, far and away Facebook\u2019s largest userbase,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cTime will tell whether this limited dataset will later expand to other issues, and how much researchers are expected to moderate their findings if they hope for continued amicable engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very possible for Facebook to effectively cherry-pick datasets to try to avoid issues they know exist, but you also cannot start building a collaborative process on all fronts and issues. Time will tell how open the multinational wishes to be,\u201d Veale adds.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve reached out to Facebook for comment on the criticism of its ad archive API.<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/5PNgKp7upyE\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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