Private Social Media Data in the Public Interest: What’s Next?

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Private Social Media Data in the Public Interest: What’s Next?

Hosted by Berkman Klein Center

To address the variety of problems related to social media like disinformation, harassment, and hate speech, governments and civil society need better information and evidence bases.

Recent challenges in platform research (including testimony by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen) have made this clearer and led to renewed attention to the difficulty of accessing data held by social media companies. The complex, persistent barriers to access have led journalists, academics, and members of civil society to devise other ways to study key aspects of online behavior on social media platforms.

What might genuine data-driven oversight of social media companies look like? How can policy and industry efforts ensure the public interest while addressing various competing tensions around privacy, security, and competition?

Hosted by the Berkman Klein Center’s Institute for Rebooting Social Media, this panel discussion will explore both existing legal and policy dilemmas around these questions and possible paths forward to address them.