Facebook launches new initiative to support independent academic research about the impact of social media on democracy and elections
this excellent SNL parody of Zuck perfectly demonstrates why Amy Gesenhues / Marketing Land : Facebook announces election-based independent research initiative as part of its continuing hearts and minds campaign Morgan Chalfant / The Hill : Facebook launches project to study social media's impact on elections Alfred Ng / CNET : Zuckerberg launches Facebook research effort to protect elections Paul Hill / Neowin : Facebook to help scholars assess social media's impact on elections David McCabe / Axios : Facebook says it will provide data to elections researchers Jason Aycock / Seeking Alpha : Facebook launches scholarly research project on social media/elections David Cohen / Adweek : Facebook Turns to Scholars to Analyze Social Media's Impact on Elections Rebecca Hill / The Register : Facebook offers to crack open data for eggheads to find out how badly it's screwed democracy Don Reisinger / Fortune : Facebook Launches Initiative on Social Media's Impact on Elections and Democracy Mark Zuckerberg : If you've followed me for a while, you know one of my top priorities … Sheryl Sandberg : One of our top priorities for 2018 is doing everything in our power … Tweets: Kelly Born / @kellykborn : Today we announced a partnership with the Sloan, Koch, Knight, and Arnold Foundations, Democracy Fund, and Omidyar Network, SSRC and Facebook on a new research initiative to increase public understanding of Facebook's role in elections and democracy. https://www.hewlett.org/... Klia / @klia00 : “Both the committee of academics and their research grants will be funded by a group of independent foundations, including the Hewlett Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and the Charles Koch Foundation.” http://www.theatlantic.com/... Ed Yong / @edyong209 : “[@yayitsrob] asked: Was there an especially dark moment when he came to realize the role that Facebook played in the 2016 election? Zuckerberg paused for eight long seconds. “I need to think about that,” he said eventually.” http://www.theatlantic.com/... Molly McKew / @mollymckew : New initiative by Facebook to support academic research on social media impact in elections. But key phrase is: “The focus will be entirely forward looking.” So no accounting of what has already happened. Smart PR before hearings, but don't miss this gap. http://newsroom.fb.com/... Anil Dash / @anildash : This is important news from Facebook, opening up to research from credible orgs like @SSRC_org. Concessions like this would never have been made before, but using this opportunity for accountability & responsible research might be one positive outcome. http://newsroom.fb.com/... Karen Swan Schwartz / @pithywidow : Fox announces new hen house security study http://newsroom.fb.com/... Tom Namako / @tomnamako : Mark Zuckerberg: “If you've followed me for a while, you know one of my top priorities for 2018 in making sure Facebook prevents interference and misinformation in elections.” hahahhahahhahahaha http://www.facebook.com/... Eric Garland / @ericgarland : BREAKING! As part of new electiony horse-barn initiative, FSBook will now partner with the Koch Brothers and the guys from the Intercept. http://newsroom.fb.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook is funding an independent academic research program into how social media affects democracy and elections, bankrolled alongside a coalition of foundations including Hewlett, Omidyar, Charles Koch, Sloan, Knight, Arnold, Democracy Fund, and SSRC. The move lands mid-crisis for the company, and critics immediately frame it as PR that studies only future elections while sidestepping accountability for past ones.
What makes this initiative more than a press release is the access pipeline it sets up: within weeks Facebook commits to encrypted laptops and no pre-approval on published findings for researchers, and by July its Social Science One group offers scholars a petabyte of anonymized user data on misinformation in elections — a template later extended to ad-targeting records for the 2020 cycle.
First-order effects
- Researchers gain funded, foundation-backed access to Facebook's election-related data, while Facebook buys credibility with an independent-seeming process at the height of scrutiny over its role in elections.
Second-order effects
- Rival platforms face pressure to match the researcher-access model or explain why they won't, and the foundations' involvement becomes the legitimacy shield Facebook points to when critics call the effort self-serving.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, platform data access becomes a standing institution rather than a crisis response — Facebook's own follow-ons, from the two-dozen-researcher study of the 2020 election to the release of targeting data on 1.3M political ads, show the one-off initiative hardening into recurring infrastructure.
The trend: Platforms under political scrutiny are converting ad-hoc transparency gestures into permanent, foundation-laundered research programs that trade data access for legitimacy.