Facebook gives partial data to researchers studying misinformation 

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From the report from August 18th (Q2 2021), University of Urbino associate professor Fabio Giglietto discovered the issue. His comparison of data given to researchers in the “Widely Viewed Content Report” and data the social network published in August didn’t match. 

Also, the New York Times reported that Facebook had initially shelved a report about its first-quarter because it portrayed the company in a less flattering light. But Facebook finally released the shelved report.

And in August, Facebook cut off access to researchers from New York University’s Ad Observatory project from its platform. The group’s Ad Observer browser plug-in highlighted some issues. The group was banned after researchers discovered Facebook failed to disclose some political ads on its site.

The team was using a browser extension to collect accurate information on political ads. The social network claimed it was  “unauthorized scraping.”