Moreover, Facebook’s cooperation with Social Science One stands as an
exception to the general rule of tech corporations denying access to user data.
In general, these companies view themselves as having much more to lose from
sharing data than they have to gain. On top of potential reputational and
ﬁnancial damage caused by ﬁndings that put the ﬁrm in a bad light, the ﬁrms
are reluctant to risk the possibility of unauthorized disclosure and breaches of
privacy. Today, academic requests for access to these kinds of data are seen in
the light of the now-infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal. As is now well
known, in 2014 a researcher at Cambridge University, acting in his personal
capacity, placed a psychological questionnaire on Facebook’s platform. Users
who took the survey consented to deliver data about their proﬁle and activity on
Facebook and that of their friends (who never consented to the survey). That
Social_Media_and_Democracy