Leading academics write to Secretary of State calling for increased and accelerated social media platform data access

We must ensure researchers, along with journalists, policymakers and civil society, can effectively understand some of the most pressing issues facing our societies today.

Leading academics have signed a letter to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, calling for increased and accelerated social media platform data access for accredited researchers and civil society organisations, to ensure independent research, democratic oversight and accountability.

The letter states that:

-Data access helps keep people safe online.

-Data access can ensure the UK remains one of the most innovative places for research in the world.

-The UK has the opportunity to jumpstart online safety work, by learning from the early experiences in other jurisdictions.

Read the letter

The full letter and signatories are below. If you would like to support this letter, please do add your name and organisation to this list.

Dear Secretary of State, 

With discussion in the House of Lords on the Online Safety Bill, we wanted to write to you about social media platform data access for accredited researchers and civil society organisations.

Currently, the Online Safety Bill states that the regulator OFCOM must produce a report within two years, describing how, and to what extent, people carrying out independent research into online safety matters would be able to obtain data from providers of regulated services to inform their research. We believe these requirements can be strengthened now instead of waiting for a subsequent report. This would potentially bring forward the timeline for researcher access to data in line with the developments that have occurred with the EU’s Digital Services Act. 

We strongly urge the Government to support the amendments proposed by Lord Bethell, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Knight of Weymouth for ‘Access to information by approved independent researchers’ and a ‘Code of practice on access to data by researchers’.

These amendments would accelerate and increase the data access provision in the Bill and have already received support from over 25 organisations, including academics, charities and online safety campaigners. 

We believe that such amendments are necessary for independent research, democratic oversight and accountability. As researchers, we are calling for support for these provisions.

Firstly, data access helps keep people safe online.

The UK is fast becoming one of the top places in the world for research on online harms. With these provisions, the UK can have more skilled people able to assess the safety of online platforms. Without such access, regulators are asking platform companies, in effect, to mark their own homework or to lean on taxpayers to pay for hiring more skilled people to help do this analysis. The provision of social media platform data is a key regulatory level for the Online Safety Bill. OFCOM has the expertise to make such provisions so that they respect people’s privacy and companies’ intellectual property. This is also in line with the recent advisory by the US surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy calling on policy makers to ‘ensure technology companies share data relevant to the health impact of their platforms with independent researchers and the public in a manner that is timely, sufficiently detailed, and protects privacy’ as a critical step for youth mental health.

Secondly, data access can ensure the UK remains one of the most innovative places for research in the world. 

The Government recently launched the AI White Paper, with the aim of driving responsible innovation and maintaining public trust in this revolutionary technology. Data access is imperative to achieving these goals.  The newly launched Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has a mission to drive innovation. The proposed data access provisions help to ensure that computational social science researchers stay in the UK, rather than leave for projects in the EU which already has these data access provisions in place.  Strengthening the provisions in the Online Safety Bill would prevent a ‘brain-drain’ of talent leaving our shores for the EU. 

Finally, the UK has the opportunity to jumpstart online safety work, by learning from the early experiences in other jurisdictions. 

There is currently a Code of Conduct for how platform companies could share data with researchers under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These principles have been agreed by the research community and most platform companies, who are in the process of signing the Code. If the proposed amendments are adopted, OFCOM could model a UK Code of Practice on the hard work and long negotiations with platform companies that have already taken place through the European Digital Media Observatory and elsewhere.

We urge you to support these amendments, and ensure researchers, along with journalists, policymakers and civil society, can effectively understand some of the most pressing issues facing our societies today. 

We are copying this letter to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Paul Scully MP, Lord Parkinson, Number 10 Policy Unit, The Lord Grade of Yarmouth CBE, and Dame Melanie Dawes DCB. 

Yours sincerely,