- Apr 30, 2019
Facebook Opens User Data to Researchers for the First Time
Facebook recently announced its first research grants to academics studying the impact of social media on elections. It has decide to open its data to some 60 researchers from 30 academics institutions across 11 countries.
Facebook seemed to have begun researching last year after revelations of foreign influence campaigns on the 2016 US election and the Brexit vote in Britain.
Facebook is hoping that this initiative will deepen public understanding of the role social media has elections and democracy. It will also help Facebook and other companies to improve their products and practices.
With this move, academics can now view which websites users linked out to between January 2017 and February 2019. They will also be see data from Crowdtangle which is the tool used by publishers that shows them how content is being posted on Facebook.
Read more at dailymail.co.uk