As the Delegated Regulation on data access provided for in the European Digital Services Act is awaiting its publication, the Forum on Information and Democracy, members of its Working Group on Artificial Intelligence and researchers and civil society organizations worldwide call upon the European Commission to provide researchers access to conduct experimental evaluations of VLOPs.
As Alistair Knott, Victoria University of Wellington, Dino Pedreschi, University of Pisa, Jonathan Stray and Stuart Russell, University of California Berkeley outline in their paper – signed by international researchers and civil society- researchers should be granted access to companies’ experimental methodologies and access needed to run new experiments on platforms to study how platforms impact users.
Only through such access can researchers fully understand the platform’s algorithms and moderation policies and assess systemic risks. Such access and research is not only needed to strengthen transparency and accountability of platforms but also to better tailor solutions and regulatory frameworks.
This recommendation is in line with the Forum on Information and Democracy’s recently published report “AI as a Public Good: Ensuring Democratic Control of AI in the Information Space” to which two of the paper’s authors, namely Alistair Knott and Jonathan Stray contributed as Working Group members.
The European Digital Services Act is an occasion to provide the necessary framework to grant such access. Its Article 40 outlines the rules for data access and scrutiny whereas the to-be-published delegated act will set the detailed conditions. The European Commission can thus be at the forefront in creating the necessary conditions for researchers to hold social media platforms accountable and provide the urgently needed understanding of how these platforms impact democracy, the right to information, human rights and societal wellbeing.
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