Facebook's plan to fight propaganda with radical transparency was too radical

tedlistens writes: Social Science One, an unprecedented, Mark Zuckerberg-backed plan to open up Facebook's data to outside researchers—with the aim of fighting disinformation and propaganda ahead of elections in 2020—has run up against privacy concerns at Facebook. A month after the funders' deadline, Facebook continues to work on treating the data with differential privacy techniques and says it hopes to publish more datasets soon. But researchers are frustrated and confused, and the backers are reconsidering their support. And lawmakers like Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are growing impatient too.

“In Congress, we need to require greater accountability from social media platforms on everything from the transparency of political ad funding, to the legitimacy of content, to the authenticity of user accounts,” Warner tells Alex Pasternack at Fast Company. “And if platforms refuse to comply, we need to be able to hold them responsible.”