Another Friday Facebook news dump:
Researchers who relied on FB-provided data to study user behaviors were told this week the underlying data they were using was flawed. This will have significant impact on research about the platform. https://t.co/5HNUaiu8Dw
— Ryan Mac 🙃 (@RMac18) September 10, 2021
The company told them that it’s fixing the issue. But it could take weeks due to the sheer volume of data it has to process. The academic researchers studying misinformation with Facebook data. apologized for the “inconvenience it may have caused.”
Facebook spokesperson Mavis Jones blamed the data inaccuracy on a “technical error,” which the company is “working swiftly to resolve.”
Some of the researchers are questioning whether the mistakes were intentional. Because the “cherry-picked” data would sabotage the research and cause the researchers to reach the wrong conclusions.
A Facebook spokesperson emphasized this was a mistake. And it resulted from a technical error. The company “proactively told impacted partners about and are working swiftly to resolve” the problem.
Researchers studying misinformation
The flaw in the data was first discovered by a researcher at the Italian University of Urbino, who compared a report Facebook released publicly in August to the data it had provided only to the researchers. The data didn’t add up.
