American Greatness: A research group that has been investigating the manipulation of algorithms by Instagram was forced to shut down its research after legal threats from Facebook, according to Breitbart.
The Germany-based group, AlgorithmWatch, was investigating how Instagram favors certain types of content over others, and thus promotes them more heavily on users’ timelines. The group had been utilizing a browser extension that specializes in collecting data from users’ Instagram feeds in order to determine certain trends.
Among other findings, AlgorithmWatch determined that Instagram, a photo-sharing website, more heavily prioritizes images that include faces rather than just text. In May, representatives from Facebook, which owns Instagram, requested a meeting with the project’s leaders; during that meeting, Facebook accused the group, without any evidence, of violating Instagram’s terms of service. They also claimed that the investigation was in violation of the European Union’s GDPR data laws, since the project was allegedly collecting user data without the consent of the users.
The researchers countered by pointing out that they had “only collected data related to content that Facebook displayed to the volunteers who installed the add-on. In other words, users of the plug-in were only accessing their own feed, and sharing it with us for research purposes.” Nevertheless, according to AlgorithmWatch, Facebook threatened legal action if the project was not shut down. Facebook released a statement denying that any such action was threatened. more here
You don’t own research or math you clown scrotum.
It’s surprising this guy is still alive.
I’m in Facebook jail right now for calling Zuckerberg a Nazi faggot.
LOL!!! ^^^
Funny how Dominion and Facebook are lawfare-suing anybody who might be exposing their grifts. And all the little leftist trolls who ostensibly rail against the system just cheer and cheer.
Also, I am not on social media , but I do visit some twitter feeds to see what’s up there. I used to be able to see replies to tweets, but now Twitter has blocked access unless I sign up for Twitter. Weird.
The flak increases when you’re over the target.
All the people who are being sued by Dominion and Facebook should counter-sue. Discovery will be an eye-opener IF the courts will let it happen.
I’m all for using their catch words as our codewords, just to thwart them…
Lawsuits as stalling tactics has been used since the dawn of legal representation.
Gives evidence more time to completely ‘evaporate’, ya know?