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VOICE ARCHIVE

Alex Abdo

@alexanderabdo
17 posts
2023-02-22
Today, the Supreme Court denied @Wikimedia's petition asking the Supreme Court to revive its legal challenge to the NSA's mass surveillance of the internet. It's a very disappointing decision that highlights the need for congressional action. https://www.wsj.com/...
2023-02-22 View on X
Reuters

SCOTUS declines to hear Wikimedia's challenge of the NSA's warrantless Upstream surveillance of foreign targets, leaving in place a lower court's 2015 dismissal

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a bid by the operator of the popular Wikipedia internet encyclopedia …

2021-12-10
Today, Senators @ChrisCoons, @amyklobuchar, and @senrobportman published a draft of a social-media transparency bill. The bill is an important step forward in the debate about how to regulate social media. A quick 🧵 1/ https://knightcolumbia.org/...
2021-12-10 View on X
Washington Post

In a letter, Sen. Warren asks the US DOJ and SEC to investigate whether Meta executives knew the company inflated a key metric measuring an ad's potential reach

Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post :

2021-09-12
One reason independent research of the platforms is crucial is to allow researchers to verify that the data they're getting is reliable. Turns out the concern is not hypothetical — for two years, researchers have been using data from FB that is flawed. https://www.nytimes.com/...
2021-09-12 View on X
New York Times

Internal emails: the data Facebook provided to researchers studying misinformation since 2019 included about half of its US users, not all as it then claimed

More than three years ago, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook trumpeted a plan to share data with researchers about how people interacted …

2021-09-11
One reason independent research of the platforms is crucial is to allow researchers to verify that the data they're getting is reliable. Turns out the concern is not hypothetical — for two years, researchers have been using data from FB that is flawed. https://www.nytimes.com/...
2021-09-11 View on X
New York Times

Internal emails: the data Facebook provided to researchers studying misinformation since 2019 included about half of its US users, not all as it then claimed

More than three years ago, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook trumpeted a plan to share data with researchers about how people interacted …

2021-08-14
The tempting answer is user privacy — and there are genuinely hard questions about how to design research projects that respect user privacy. Wherever you draw the line, though, the answer can't be that no independent research of the platform is permitted.
2021-08-14 View on X
The Verge

Researchers at Berlin-based AlgorithmWatch say they abandoned their research project monitoring the Instagram algorithm after legal threats from Facebook

run by @LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy—even though the work involves only limited and anonymous information about advertisements. https://knightcolumbia.org/... Deb Raji / @rajiinio...

And yet that is the answer that Facebook has given again and again. It is trying to shut down the NYU Ad Observatory—run by @LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy—even though the work involves only limited and anonymous information about advertisements. https://knightcolumbia.org/...
2021-08-14 View on X
The Verge

Researchers at Berlin-based AlgorithmWatch say they abandoned their research project monitoring the Instagram algorithm after legal threats from Facebook

run by @LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy—even though the work involves only limited and anonymous information about advertisements. https://knightcolumbia.org/... Deb Raji / @rajiinio...

An important addendum: if the companies won't provide this kind of transparency, then regulators must.
2021-08-14 View on X
The Verge

Researchers at Berlin-based AlgorithmWatch say they abandoned their research project monitoring the Instagram algorithm after legal threats from Facebook

run by @LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy—even though the work involves only limited and anonymous information about advertisements. https://knightcolumbia.org/... Deb Raji / @rajiinio...

Facebook has shut down another research project studying how the company's platforms are changing society. FB claims that its terms of service prohibit this kind of work, but even if so, it could authorize research that serves the public interest. And why wouldn't it? https://twitter.com/...
2021-08-14 View on X
The Verge

Researchers at Berlin-based AlgorithmWatch say they abandoned their research project monitoring the Instagram algorithm after legal threats from Facebook

run by @LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy—even though the work involves only limited and anonymous information about advertisements. https://knightcolumbia.org/... Deb Raji / @rajiinio...

2021-08-06
The FTC has now made clear that Facebook is wrong to invoke the consent decree in trying to shut down the Ad Observer research project run by @LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy. https://www.ftc.gov/...
2021-08-06 View on X
Washington Post

In a letter to Zuckerberg, the FTC called Facebook's initial claim it cut off NYU researchers' access to comply with an FTC privacy agreement “inaccurate”

The Federal Trade Commission has dismissed as “inaccurate” Facebook's claim that it cut off a group of researchers' access …

2021-08-05
The answer can't be that Facebook gets to unilaterally decide what the public knows about the platform. https://twitter.com/...
2021-08-05 View on X
Wired

Mozilla's analysis says Facebook's justifications for cutting off access to researchers running NYU's Ad Observatory project “simply do not hold water”

The company says privacy concerns forced it to block access for a team of academics.  Whose privacy, exactly? Source: The Mozilla Blog .

The answer can't be that Facebook gets to unilaterally decide what the public knows about the platform. https://twitter.com/...
2021-08-05 View on X
Bloomberg

Facebook says it has disabled the accounts, apps, Pages, and access to its APIs for researchers running NYU's Ad Observatory Project, citing TOS violations

whose ads are already public and whose data Facebook stores in a public archive. https://www.protocol.com/... Dell Cameron / @dellcam : NEW: Senate Intel Chair @MarkWarner condemns...

2021-03-21
Incredibly important story by @issielapowsky at @protocol, including this follow-up thread on Facebook's repeated attempts to mislead her. Independent research and journalism on the platforms is key. We can't let Facebook decide what we're allowed to know about Facebook. https://twitter.com/...
2021-03-21 View on X
Protocol

Facebook's decision to crack down on NYU's Ad Observer highlights the increasingly fraught dynamic between tech companies and academics

Laura Edelson was in a state of panic, and I knew I was a little bit to blame for her freakout.  —  “If this is true,” Edelson told me this week during … Tweets: @issielapowsky , @...

2021-03-20
Incredibly important story by @issielapowsky at @protocol, including this follow-up thread on Facebook's repeated attempts to mislead her. Independent research and journalism on the platforms is key. We can't let Facebook decide what we're allowed to know about Facebook. https://twitter.com/...
2021-03-20 View on X
Protocol

Facebook's decision to crack down on NYU's Ad Observer highlights the increasingly fraught dynamic between tech companies and academics

Laura Edelson was in a state of panic, and I knew I was a little bit to blame for her freakout.  —  “If this is true,” Edelson told me this week during …

2020-10-25
If Facebook were truly committed to research into its platform, it would create a safe harbor within its terms of service for research that is manifestly in the public interest and that protects user privacy. We proposed just that two years ago. https://knightcolumbia.org/...
2020-10-25 View on X
Wall Street Journal

Facebook asks NYU Ad Observatory, which analyzes political ad targeting using data collected from a browser extension, to cease the practice for violating TOS

In letter this month, Facebook says the project violates provisions in its terms of service that prohibit bulk data collection

This is a disturbing development. Last Friday, Facebook sent a cease-and-desist letter to two NYU researchers (@LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy), demanding that they shut down their research into political ads and disinformation on FB's platform. https://www.wsj.com/...
2020-10-25 View on X
Wall Street Journal

Facebook asks NYU Ad Observatory, which analyzes political ad targeting using data collected from a browser extension, to cease the practice for violating TOS

In letter this month, Facebook says the project violates provisions in its terms of service that prohibit bulk data collection

2020-10-24
If Facebook were truly committed to research into its platform, it would create a safe harbor within its terms of service for research that is manifestly in the public interest and that protects user privacy. We proposed just that two years ago. https://knightcolumbia.org/...
2020-10-24 View on X
Wall Street Journal

Facebook asks NYU Ad Observatory, which analyzes political ad targeting using data collected from a browser extension, to cease the practice for violating TOS

In letter this month, Facebook says the project violates provisions in its terms of service that prohibit bulk data collection

This is a disturbing development. Last Friday, Facebook sent a cease-and-desist letter to two NYU researchers (@LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy), demanding that they shut down their research into political ads and disinformation on FB's platform. https://www.wsj.com/...
2020-10-24 View on X
Wall Street Journal

Facebook asks NYU Ad Observatory, which analyzes political ad targeting using data collected from a browser extension, to cease the practice for violating TOS

In letter this month, Facebook says the project violates provisions in its terms of service that prohibit bulk data collection