Jonathan Greig
| August 5, 2021 — 01:32 GMT (02:32 BST)
| Topic: Security
Facebook is facing significant backlash from lawyers and professors at two New York universities after the platform shut down a study being done on political ads and the spread of misinformation.
New York University (NYU) and Columbia University released a statement on Wednesday condemning the decision by Facebook, which decided to shut down the accounts of New York University researchers Laura Edelson and Damon McCoy Tuesday evening.
In a statement, Edelson said they had been negotiating with Facebook for months over a research tool called Ad Observer. The tool is part of work of NYU Cybersecurity for Democracy, where Edelson is lead researcher and a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at New York University Tandon School of Engineering.
Ad Observer is a browser plugin that gave Facebook users the chance to share “limited and anonymous information” about the political ads they see on a daily basis. The tool also allows researchers and reporters to look through political advertising trends on Facebook in their states.
“Yesterday evening, Facebook suspended my Facebook account and the accounts of several people associated with Cybersecurity for Democracy, our team at NYU. This has the effect of cutting off our access to Facebook’s Ad Library data, as well as Crowdtangle,” Edelson said.
“Over the last several years, we’ve used this access to uncover systemic flaws in the Facebook Ad Library, to identify misinformation in political ads, including many sowing distrust in our election system, and to study Facebook’s apparent amplification of partisan misinformation. By suspending our accounts, Facebook has tried to shut down all this work.”
Edelson added that Facebook had effectively cut off access to more than two dozen other researchers and journalists who get access to Facebook data through our project, including work measuring vaccine misinformation with the Virality Project and other partners.
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Jonathan Greig
| August 5, 2021 — 01:32 GMT (02:32 BST)
| Topic: Security