Meta and TikTok are obstructing researchers' access to data, EU commission rules

Sorry but this sounds like a privacy nightmare. No one should trust random researchers with mountains of data. They clearly won’t know how to secure it. But also the angle of trying to police information and elections is disturbing, especially after several instances of the EU interfering in elections in recent times.

You talk as if the US hasn't attempted to interfere in elections.

If online ads can be trivially used by big US tech companies to sway our elections using misinformation without it being observable to anyone or possible to refute (as would be the case for newspaper or TV ads) then why shouldn't it be monitored?

Can you tell us more about how big tech had used ads to sway elections?

Also, minor detail, TikTok in the EU is not a US tech company.

I don't think it's about the US in its entirety, nor ads, but Republicans and Elon Musk have become very skilled at exerting political influence in the US [1] and Europe [2] through social media in ways the public isn't really aware of:

[1] https://www.techpolicy.press/x-polls-skew-political-realitie...

[2] https://zenodo.org/records/14880275

The platforms themselves strike many as a privacy nightmare. I'm not aware of any mass data breaches that can be attributed to poor academic security in recent memory.

instances of the EU interfering in elections

Do tell.

Eh. Users choose to use the platform. Users concerned about privacy don't have to use it.

How can I, an end user who doesn't trust the ability of these researchers to keep my data private, prevent the platform from sharing my data with them?