Studies

The work of independent researchers and analysts who study content that has a potential to cause harm to individuals, groups of people or the whole society is indispensable for democracy. Since the spread of mis- and disinformation became one of the key societal threats, a strong community of experts has emerged with a capacity to study all ABCDEs (actors, behaviours, content, degree and effect) linked to malign content. However capable, the community is still strongly dependent on one factor – data availability (open APIs, web-based repositories) of the platforms where the content, including disinformation, spreads. The degree of openness of data – and the choice of which data would be available for research and in which form (API, dashboard, etc.) – has been dependent upon each platform’s decision.