In their article on the Verfassungsblog, Amélie Heldt, PD Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann and Paddy Leerssen write about the difficulties of gaining access to platform data as researchers.
Über die Schwierigkeiten, als Forscher*in Zugang zu Plattformdaten zu bekommen, schreiben gemeinsam mit Paddy Leerssen in ihrem Beitrag auf dem Verfassungsblog.
Access the Article Here
The Sorrows of Scraping for Science: Why Platforms Struggle with Ensuring Data Access for Academics
Abstract
Overall, the multifaceted nature of data collected and data access needed for socially responsible research means that we probably will not be able to settle on one specific transparency rule to cover all public interest concerns. Rather, transparency can and must come in many forms.
One form could be by national law: The ongoing reform of the German Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) has been a missed opportunity to redefine transparency obligations to include data access rights for researchers. The amended § 2 (2) NetzDG will merely oblige platforms to provide information in their transparency reports on whether and to what extent researchers were granted access to information, but it remains at the platforms’ sole discretion to grant access. While the transparency reports under the NetzDG provide high-level aggregate data on complaints and enforcement actions, these are of minimal use to researchers, since they do not offer detailed insights into individual cases. Ultimately, neither the original version of the NetzDG, nor the (currently pending) amended version are providing meaningful access to data because platforms will obey to the letter but not a bit more.
Clearly, weighing access to data and ensuring privacy is a delicate affair. The technical and ethical challenges here are compounded by pervasive legal uncertainty, which puts researchers in a precarious position and fails to prevent platforms from painting them with the same brush as malicious data hoarders. Both platforms and governments should make an effort to improve on the availability of data for research, and, to this end, clarify the law in this space. Only with meaningful and reliable access can researchers start to answer some of societies’ most pressing questions.
Heldt, A..; Kettemann, M. C.; Leerssen, P. (2020): The Sorrows of Scraping for Science: Why Platforms Struggle with Ensuring Data Access for Academics. In: VerfBlog, 30.11.2020, https://verfassungsblog.de/the-sorrows-of-scraping-for-science
