Facebook Blacklists Academics Researching Ad Transparency

Social media giant Facebook has reportedly banned the accounts of a number of NYU academics that were researching ad transparency and misinformation on the platform.

The Verge reports that Facebook recently banned the personal accounts of a number of researchers from the NYU Ad Observatory who were investigating the spread of misinformation and ad transparency on the platform. Facebook claims that the academics violated the site’s terms of service by scraping user data without permission; the academics allege that Facebook is simply silencing them for exposing issues with Facebook’s platform.

In May, the researchers published a blog post explaining the aim of their studies — to uncover exactly who is funding political ads and how they are being targeted towards people online. As Facebook does not fact-check political ads, this research could have a great effect on the platform, and given that a huge amount of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising this could cause major issues for the company.