Academics Develop Facebook Impact Model

Facebook has engaged a team of academics, led by Crimson Hexagon co-founder and Harvard professor Garry King, to develop a model to better understand the implications of social media and digital technologies - starting with Facebook's impact on upcoming elections.

King (pictured), who has been the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor for the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University since 1987, helped set up Crimson Hexagon eleven years ago. Commissioned by, but independent of Facebook, the model has been developed by King in collaboration with Nate Persily of Stanford Law School, to enable academics to gain access to previously unavailable privacy-protected Facebook data, for use in social science studies.

The new model will aim to curb current concerns about consumer privacy and election interference, including recent allegations that Cambridge Analytica illegally harvested millions of Facebook profiles which could be matched to US electoral rolls. As part of the partnership, scholars will form a commission that will receive access to all relevant information, then research specific areas, funded by non-profit foundations. The commission will oversee the peer review process for funding and data access, and Facebook will not review or approve research findings prior to publication.

Explaining the purpose behind the project, King said: 'Studying Facebook's effect on elections is just the beginning. This initiative will help social scientists use Facebook data in a variety of research projects without compromising the privacy of Facebook's two billion users - and without needing pre-approval from Facebook to share their findings. This is an extraordinary opportunity to impact the greater good of society, and we're incredibly excited to have this chance to use social media data for academic progress'.