fbTREX is facilitating collaborative research and monitoring around the impact of the Facebook algorithm on the 2019 EU elections.
In recent years, it has become clear that Facebook presents acute problems for our elections, as issues of data exploitation, media manipulation, and algorithmic censorship continually surface.
While political campaigns tend to view digital platforms as a means to communicate directly with constituents, Facebook exercises its immense and tightly-held control over the flow of information by intermediating between candidates and citizens, deciding for all of us which stories we see and which are hidden from us.
Facebook’s personalisation algorithms divide the public square by presenting entirely different information environments to each user. Common sources of information and even common realities are falling away as Facebook attempts to deliver to each of us a narrow window of content that it predicts we will engage with in a manner that they can monetise. This often creates echo chambers across the political spectrum, reinforcing political polarisation.
Facebook’s personalisation algorithms and targeted advertising influences the way political narratives are perceived and potentially impacts citizens’ democratic decision-making. In order to better understand these issues, we need to expose Facebook’s algorithm—but we can only do so with collaborative participation.
fbTREX provides open technology solutions which produce a structured dataset of evidence useful for research and analysis into the influence of the Facebook algorithm over political discourse. We aim to promote transparency and accountability during the critical period of the run-up to the 2019 EU elections, when public opinion is being shaped on the platform.
We call on political groups, researchers, and data volunteers to join us in a pan-European effort aimed at observing social media narrative influence around EU electoral campaigns. We hope that through this process we can continue to develop a collaborative approach to the personalised experiences, expectations, and realities that Facebook creates for us.
fbTREX has so far produced research over elections and referendums in 14 countries. Among the most enlightening methods has been to quantify the visibility of publishers’ content in news feeds. This is accomplished by recording the public content Facebook selects and displays to citizens in their news feeds in the run-up to elections, storing this data for the purpose of research.
We need widespread adoption of fbTREX tools in order to build up a robust and heterogeneous dataset from which to glean insights. We look forward to assisting in interdisciplinary, collaborative efforts to produce useful contextual overviews and tangible case studies of social media influence and abuses around and results of EU elections.
If you would like to collaborate with fbTREX, please reach out to us at support@tracking.exposed.
fbTREX prioritises the protection of personal data. Access to the full fbTREX dataset is strictly limited to researchers analysing collective phenomena in the public interest. We are asking individuals only to share some of the public data that Facebook provides them – the goal is to study social media, not the subjects participating. Still, this information can contain a lot of personally identifying information (PII), so fbTREX’s ethical policy imposes the following limits:
- We observe only news feeds, not individual profiles or pages.
- We store only posts marked as “public,” not posts that are restricted to friends.
- Users who install the extension have full control on their data. They can delete all of the data provided at any time.
- Third-party access to user data is granted by each user on a case-by-case and strictly opt-in basis.
- Analyses run on the dataset will be strictly aimed at understanding social phenomenons, not individuals.
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EU Election ‘19, join a collaborative effort to map propaganda and Facebook abuses
Collaborate with fbTREX to monitor EU elections
Collaborate with fbTREX to monitor algorithmic influence in the 2019 EU election
Join the fbTREX collaborative EU election monitoring initiative
Join us to collaboratively monitor Facebook’s influence[/]impact on EU election ‘19 discourse
Collaborate with us to monitor Facebook’s influence[/]impact in the 2019 EU election
Join a collaborative effort to expose Facebook’s influence[/]impact in the 2019 EU elections
Collaborate with us to expose manipulation by Facebook in the 2019 EU elections
EU election ‘19: Collaborate to monitor propaganda and expose Facebook abuses