Facebook Aims to Shutter NYU Research into Political Ad Targeting
MrPlow writes in with a submission, via IRC, for nutherguy_
Facebook Aims to Muzzle NYU Research Into Its Political Ad Targeting:
Facebook's trying to muzzle a group of academic researchers working to shine a light on the company's notoriously opaque political-ad targeting practices. It's threatened the team with "enforcement action" if they don't pull the plug on the project and wipe all data gathered so far, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Researchers with New York University's engineering school launched the NYU Ad Observatory project in September, an initiative that uses a custom-built browser to gather data from more than 6,500 volunteers on what kind of political ads Facebook shows them. Facebook contends that this violates its terms of service banning automated data collection. Per the Journal, Facebook's director of privacy and data policy Allison Hendrix sent a letter on Oct. 16 warning the researchers that they "may be subject to additional enforcement action" if the university doesn't shut down the project immediately and delete any data it has collected.
"Scraping tools, no matter how well-intentioned, are not a permissible means of collecting information from us," she wrote.
Also at: CTV News.
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