Facebook shut down accounts belonging to two academic researchers late Tuesday, cutting off their ability to study political ads and misinformation on the world\u2019s biggest social network.<\/p>\n
The company accused the academics of engaging in \u201cunauthorized scraping\u201d and compromising user privacy on the platform, claims that Facebook\u2019s many critics are slamming as a thin pretense<\/a> for killing the transparency work.<\/p>\n The company took action against Laura Edelson and Damon McCoy, two well-known researchers affiliated with NYU\u2019s Cybersecurity for Democracy project<\/a> who have long sparred with the company. The move cuts off their access to Facebook\u2019s Ad Library \u2014 one of the company\u2019s only meaningful transparency efforts to date \u2014 and data on popular posts from the social media monitoring service CrowdTangle.<\/p>\n Facebook has a history with Edelson and McCoy. The company served the pair cease and desist letters just weeks before the 2020 election<\/a>, calling on the team to disable an opt-in browser tool called Ad Observer and unpublish their findings. Ad Observer is a browser tool anyone can install<\/a> that\u2019s designed to give researchers a rare glimpse into how Facebook targets the ads that have transformed it into a trillion-dollar company.<\/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 Edelson said on Twitter.<\/p>\n \u201cBy suspending our accounts, Facebook has effectively ended all this work. Facebook has also effectively cut off access to more than two dozen other researchers and journalists who get access to Facebook data through our project, including our work measuring vaccine misinformation with the Virality Project<\/a> and many other partners who rely on our data.\u201d<\/p>\n The incident set off a fresh round of criticism about the company\u2019s preference for opacity over transparency when it comes to some of the more dangerous behavior that the platform incubates.<\/p>\n By Wednesday, Facebook\u2019s actions had attracted the attention of some members of Congress. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) criticized Facebook\u2019s decision to punish the researchers under the pretense of protecting users in light of the company\u2019s long history of invasive privacy practices. Wyden also called Facebook\u2019s bluff over its claim that revoking researcher access is an effort to comply with a privacy order from the FTC<\/a> that the company was issued for its previous user privacy violations.<\/p>\n After years of abusing users’ privacy, it’s rich for Facebook to use it as an excuse to crack down on researchers exposing its problems. I’ve asked the FTC to confirm that this excuse is as bogus as it sounds. https:\/\/t.co\/eHuPiVYFe9<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) August 4, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) also weighed in on Facebook\u2019s latest controversy, calling the decision \u201cdeeply concerning.\u201d Warner praised independent researchers for \u201cconsistently [improving] the integrity and safety of social media platforms by exposing harmful and exploitative activity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s past time for Congress to act to bring greater transparency to the shadowy world of online advertising, which continues to be a major vector for fraud and misconduct,\u201d Warner said.<\/p>\n Firefox developer Mozilla came to the defense of Ad Observer<\/a> on Wednesday, noting that the company \u201creviewed it twice, conducting both a code review and examining the consent flow\u201d before recommending the browser extension through its storefront. In a blog post, Mozilla\u2019s chief security officer stated that Facebook\u2019s claims \u201csimply do not hold water.\u201d<\/p>\n A number of free press organizations<\/a>, researchers and misinformation experts also condemned Facebook\u2019s decision Wednesday. \u201cFacebook\u2019s cavalier approach to privacy enabled it to become so dominant,\u201d The Markup\u2019s Julia Angwin and Nabiha Syed<\/a> wrote in a joint statement.<\/p>\n \u201cBut now, when independent researchers want to interrogate that platform and the influence it commands, Facebook is propping up user privacy as a shield to hide behind.\u201d<\/p>\n Facebook settles with FTC: $5 billion and new privacy guarantees<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
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