Sixty researchers across 11 countries selected ‘to deepen public understanding of the role social media has on elections and democracy’
Small toy figures are seen in front of Facebook logo in this illustration picture. File photo: REUTERS/DADO RUVICFacebook announced on Monday its first research grants to academics studying the affect of social media on elections, part of an effort to prevent manipulation of social platforms.
Facebook began the research initiative in 2018 after revelations of foreign influence campaigns on the 2016 US election and the Brexit vote in Britain.“To assure the independence of the research and the researchers, Facebook did not play any role in the selection of the individuals or their projects and will have no role in directing the findings or conclusions of the research,” said a blog post by Facebook executives Elliot Schrage and Chaya Nayak.
The researchers will be granted access to Facebook’s internal data through a “first-of-its-kind data sharing infrastructure to provide researchers access to Facebook data in a secure manner that protects people’s privacy”, Schrage and Nayak wrote.
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