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

(www.science.org)
187 points anigbrowl | 2 comments | 29 Oct 25 22:54 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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paxys ◴[29 Oct 25 23:09 UTC] No.45754300[source]▶
Remember that Cambridge Analytica was "research" as well. Laws like these sound good on paper, but it's the company that has to deal with the fallout when the data is used improperly. Unless the government can also come up with a fool proof framework for data sharing and enforce adequate protections, it's always going to be better for the companies to just say no and eat the fines.
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pms ◴[30 Oct 25 01:30 UTC] No.45755396[source]▶
Long story short, this "research" and data access wouldn't be allowed under the DSA, because (i) the researcher didn't provide any data protection safeguards, (ii) his university (and their data protection officer) didn't assume legal liability for his research, (iii) his research isn't focused on systemic risks to society.
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loeg ◴[30 Oct 25 01:35 UTC] No.45755440[source]▶
Platforms (reasonably!) do not trust random academic researchers to be safe custodians of user data. The area of research focus and assumption of liability do not matter. Once a researcher's copy of data is leaked, the damage is done.
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1. whatevertrevor ◴[30 Oct 25 04:25 UTC] No.45756421[source]▶
Yup, when the data breach happens the headlines aren't going to be "Random well meaning researchers caught in data breach exposing user data". They're going to be: "5 million Facebook logins hacked in massive data breach", and you'd be hard pressed to find actual information on how the leak happened, just like the gmail story from a few days ago.
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2. pms ◴[30 Oct 25 11:13 UTC] No.45758708[source]▶
No researcher will request or get access to "5 million Facebook logins" through the DSA, since such a request wouldn't comply with the DSA requirements, so your point is moot. In fact, we live in a quite different world than you imagine. Currently, researchers don't even have access to the public data, as the article points out. When it comes to private data, researchers won't get access to private messages either, but rather to aggregate-level privacy-preserving data (assuming that the DSA isn't killed before any of this happens by the industry and Republicans, which you seem to advocate for).