Scientists Around the World Call to Protect Research on One of Humanity's Greatest Short-Term Threats: Disinformation

On the occasion of International Day for Universal Access to Information, 154 researchers from 41 countries raise the alarm against threats and barriers facing those who study information integrity.

At a critical time for understanding digital communications’ impact on societies, research on disinformation is endangered.

In August, researchers around the world bid farewell to CrowdTangle – the Meta-owned social media monitoring tool. The decision by Meta to close the number one platform used to track mis- and disinformation, in what is a major election year, only to present its alternative tool Meta Content Library and API, has been met with a barrage of criticism.

If, as suggested by the World Economic Forum’s 2024 global risk report, disinformation is one of the biggest short-term threats to humanity, our collective ability to understand how it spreads and impacts our society is crucial. Just as we would not impede scientific research into the spread of viruses and disease, nor into natural ecosystems or other historical and social sciences, disinformation research must be permitted to be carried out unimpeded and with access to information needed to understand its complexity. Understanding the political economy of disinformation as well as its technological dimensions is also a matter of public health, democratic resilience, and national security.

By directly affecting the research community’s ability to open social media black boxes, this radical decision will also, in turn, hamper public understanding of how technology affects democracy. Public interest scrutiny is also essential for the next era of technology, notably for the world’s largest AI systems, which are similarly proprietary and opaque. The research community is already calling on AI companies to learn from the mistakes of social media and guarantee protections for good faith research. The solution falls on multiple shoulders and the global scientific community, civil society, public institutions and philanthropies must come together to meaningfully foster and protect public interest research on information and democracy.

The cost of integrity

Steps in the right direction regarding data access only brush the surface of the growing pressures and threats faced by researchers exploring online disinformation during this critical period. In their efforts to better understand and address disinformation and its distributors, researchers are ironically targeted by the very same actors their research seeks to expose and hold to account.

Recently, the Stanford Internet Observatory faced growing political and legal pressure on the eve of a major election. It collects, analyzes and shares evidence related to electoral mis- and disinformation. Similar developments have been reported by other American and Brazilian research centers, which are also struggling with lawsuits and congressional hearings, with researchers reportedly being targeted by online conspiracy theories and harassment campaigns. Intimidation tactics also come from corporations, with the recent example of X’s lawsuit against a counter-hate think tank.

Rather than leaving individual institutions and researchers to respond to this mounting pressure on their own, the academic community should collectively join forces to create a clearinghouse to defend researchers and research integrity.

Evidence scarcity and weaponization

Although digital disruptions to democratic processes are becoming more commonly acknowledged, the true extent of their effects on opinion and decision is still debated. An ongoing global meta research by the Observatory on Information and Democracy shows that there is little scientific consensus on the effects of disinformation on voters’ behaviors, or the causality between online echo chambers and political polarization.

Academic research also establishes that people tend to overestimate their ability to detect disinformation, and that fact-checking and media literacy are both crucial tools but no silver bullets to information chaos. More research is needed to further assess and collect empirical evidence – hence the urgency of protecting research integrity in this field.

Scientific consensus and trust

These research gaps and dissensus are worsened by online data scarcity, limited access to proprietary data for public interest research and low levels of public knowledge and trust in digital research, as reported by the Coalition for Independent Technology Research as well as by the Mozilla Foundation and the National Conference on Citizenship

Artificial intelligence is increasingly represented in this research field. We hope to see similar investment in critically important and overlooked issues like data access, authentication, open source and media literacy, to ensure a more balanced scientific state of the art.

European policy developments made landmark and inspiring efforts to grant researchers greater access to data under the Digital Services Act. But meaningful platform transparency by corporations will very much depend on its implementation and enforcement. And the rise of populist political parties across the world is not a good sign for information integrity or ensuring researchers’ safety.

Public Gatekeepers for Research Integrity on Information and Democracy

In a year with more than 70 key elections, the need for researchers to comprehensively conduct public interest research on information disorder has never been greater. And it is concomitant to the challenge of public trust in information.

Simply acknowledging the issue is not enough. There must be a clear framework to empower and protect academics working on information and democracy and ensure they can continue their work both safely and independently, free from financial repercussions or emotional toll.

With this conviction, the International Observatory on Information and Democracy, representing a community of over 300 research organizations and academics across the globe, alongside the 154 below signatories calls on governments and international institutions for the development of an ambitious roadmap to safeguard research integrity in the digital age.

Signatories:

1. Rosemary Ajayi, Founder, Digital Africa Research and Safety Lab (DigiAfricaLab), UK.
2. Sacha Altay, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
3. Michelle A. Amazeen, Associate Professor of Mass Communication, Boston University, USA.
4. Ian A. Anderson, Postdoctoral Researcher, Caltech, USA.
5. Natalia Aruguete, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina.
6. Homa Azodi, Master’s candidate in International Studies, University of Montreal, Canada.
7. Romain Badouard, Associate Professor, Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas, France.
8. Dylan K. Baker, Lead Research Engineer, Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), USA.
9. Emma Beauxis-Aussalet, Assistant Professor of Ethical Computing, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Lab Manager, Civic AI Lab, The Netherlands.
10. Anja Bechmann, Professor and director of DATALAB, Aarhus University, Denmark.
11. Nouha Belaid, PhD in media and communication, Tunisia.
12. José Luis Benítez, Researcher and media consultant, El Salvador.
13. Kalina Bontcheva, University of Sheffield, UK.
14. Habmo Birwe, Research Fellow, World Bank, Cameroon.
15. Constance Bommelaer de Leusse, AI and Society Institute, and university of Sciences Po, France.
16. Danielle Borges, Research Associate at the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, European University Institute, Italy.
17. Iris Boyer, Head of the International Observatory on Information and Democracy, France.
18. Emma L. Briant, Associate Professor of News and Political Communication, Monash University, Australia.
19. Gerald Bronner, Professor of sociology, Sorbonne University, France.
20. Sally Broughton Micova, Associate Professor of Communications Policy & Politics, University of East Anglia, UK.
21. Florian Cafiero, Fellow AI for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL), Paris, France.
22. Gustavo Cardoso, Professor Iscte-IUL, Head of the CIES MediaLab, Portugal.
23. Roberta Carlini, Part-time Assistant Professor at the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, European University Institute, Italy.
24. Marta Cantero Gamito, Professor of IT Law, University of Tartu; Research Fellow, European University Institute, Finland.
25. Raja Chatila, Professor Emeritus, Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics, Sorbonne University, Paris, France.
26. David Chavalarias, research director at CNRS, France.
27. John Cook, Senior Research Fellow, Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change, University of Melbourne, Australia.
28. Laurent Cordonier, Research director, Fondation Descartes, France; Associate researcher, Sorbonne University - CNRS (GEMASS, UMR 8598), France.
29. Julián D. Cortés, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia.
30. Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, LSE, UK.
31. Eileen Culloty, Assistant Professor of Media and Communication, Dublin City University, Ireland.
32. Francis P. Crawley, Executive Director, Good Clinical Practice Alliance – Europe (GCPA) & Executive Director, Strategic Initiative for Developing Capacity in Ethical Review (SIDCER); Leuven, Belgium.
33. Claes de Vreese, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
34. Laurence Dierickx, PostDoc Researcher, University of Bergen, Teacher Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
35. Lucina Di Meco, Co-founder, #ShePersisted, USA.
36. Flavia Durach, Associate professor, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania; Rapporteur, International Observatory for Information and Democracy - Forum on Information and Democracy, France.
37. Julia Ebner, Leader of the Violent Extremism Lab at the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, University of Oxford, and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Calleva Centre for Evolution and Human Science, University of Oxford, UK.
38. Ullrich Ecker, Professor, University of Western Australia.
39. Galen Englund, Convener and Executive Director, Extremism and Gaming Research Network, UK.
40. Óscar Espiritusanto, Professor of journalism at the Carlos III University of Madrid and Director of the Department of Educational Innovation at the Cibervoluntarios Foundation, Spain.
41. Marc Faddoul, Director, AI Forensics, France.
42. Julien Falgas, Enseignant-chercheur, Université de Lorraine, France.
43. Carmen Beatriz Fernández, researcher and consultant DatastrategIA Consult, Bilbao, Spain
44. Agustín Ferrari Braun, PhD Researcher, University of Amsterdam (Media Studies & Institute for Information Law), the Netherlands.
45. Terry Flew, Professor of Digital Communication and Culture, The University of Sydney, Australia.
46. Divina Frau-Meigs, Professor emerita, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, UNESCO Chair Savoir Devenir, France.
47. Olivier de Frouville, Professor of International Law, Paris-Panthéon-Assas University, Director of the Paris Human Rights Center, France.
48. Jean-Gabriel Ganascia, Professor Emerita, Sorbonne University, Researcher LIP6 (computer science laboratory of Sorbonne University, Paris, France.
49. Leanna Garfield, Social Media Safety Program Manager, GLAAD, USA.
50. Martin Gibert, Center for research in ethics, University of Montreal, Canada.
51. Anna Gibson, Postdoctoral Associate in Comparative Media Studies/Writing, MIT, USA.
52. Fabio Giglietto, University of Urbino, Italy.
53. Priscila Gonsales, Researcher, University of Campinas, University of Brasilia, University of Bristol (visiting fellow), UNESCO consultant, Brazil.
54. Paula Gori, European University Institute, Italy.
55. Arthur Grimonpont, Head of the AI and Global Challenges Desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), France.
56. Rahaf Harfoush, Executive Director, Red Thread Institute of Digital Culture, France.
57. Pavel Havlicek, Research Fellow, Association for International Affairs (AMO) in Prague, Czech Republic.
58. Francisco Herrera, Professor of AI, University of Granada, Spain.
59. Ralph Hertwig, Director, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Germany.
60. Jeanette Hofmann, Professor of Internet Politics, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
61. C. Ann Hollifield, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, University of Georgia, USA.
62. Minna Aslama Horowitz, Researcher, University of Helsinki / EDMO-NORDIS, Finland.
63. Matthew Hornsey, Net Zero Observatory, University of Queensland, Australia.
64. Philippe Huneman, Research Director CNRS, Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, Paris Sorbonne, France.
65. Poncelet Ileleji, CEO - Jokkolabs Banjul, The Gambia.
66. Wendpanga Rodrigue Kabore, PhD in Information and Communication Sciences, Burkina Faso.
67. Jhalak M. Kakkar, Executive Director, Centre for Communication Governance, India.
68. Waliyu Karimu dit Wally Karim, Enseignant-Chercheur, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Abidjan-Cocody, Côte d’Ivoire.
69. Mehdi Khamassi, Research director in cognitive science, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / Sorbonne University, Paris, France.
70. Ioannis Kompatsiaris, Information Technologies Institute - Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece.
71. Sergei Kruk, Professor, Riga Stradins University, Latvia.
72. Arne H. Krumsvik, Professor, Department of Communication, Kristiania University College, Oslo, Norway.
73. Anselm Küsters, Head of the Department of Digitisation / New Technologies at the Centre for European Policy (cep), Berlin, Affiliated researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main, Researcher at the Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
74. Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor, Centre for Consumer Society Research, University of Helsinki, Finland.
75. Stephanie Lamy, Co-founder Danaides.org, Lecturer International governance, Sciences Po Toulouse, France.
76. Horacio Larreguy, Associate Professor, ITAM, Mexico.
77. Théophile Lenoir, Researcher, University of Milan, Italy.
78. Stephan Lewandowsky, Professor, University of Bristol, UK.
79. Kevin Limonier, Associate professor, GEODE, University of Paris 8, France.
80. Sonia Livingstone, Professor, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
81. Shayne Longpre, PhD Candidate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
82. Beatriz Lopes Buarque, Fellow, LSE, UK.
83. Deborah Lupton, Professor, Vitalities Lab and Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia.
84. Ioana Manolescu, Inria senior researcher and professor at Ecole polytechnique, France.
85. Robin Mansell, Professor Emerita, Media and Communications Dept. LSE, UK.
86. Anna Marchese, Senior Project Officer, Columbia World Projects, Columbia University, USA.
87. Michael Markovitz, Head, GIBS Media Leadership Think Tank, Gordon Institute of Business Science, South Africa.
88. Charlie Martial Ngounou, AfroLeadership, Cameroon.
89. Siddhartha Menon, Senior Writer and Reviewer, Outlier AI / Scale AI, USA.
90. Arnaud Mercier, Professor, University Paris Panthéon-Assas, France.
91. Asma Mhalla, Political scientist, associate researcher, EHESS, Sciences Po, France.
92. Izak Minnaar, African Alliance for Access to Data, South Africa.
93. Jozef Michal Mintal, Research Fellow and Director of the Institute for Democracy, Matej Bel University, Slovakia.
94. Sasha Moriniere, Researcher and Advocate, Conspiracy Watch. Specialist in online hate speech and disinformation.
95. Jun Murai, Distinguished Professor, Keio University, Japan.
96. Richard Ngamita, Research Lead - Threats Civic Tech, Uganda.
97. Hannu Nieminen, Professor of Media and Communications Policy, University of Helsinki, Finland.
98. Brendan Nyhan, James O. Freedman Presidential Professor, Department of Government, Dartmouth College, USA.
99. Immaculate Odwera, Senior Associate, Lead Legal team on AI and Technology Stratford Venture Partner, Dover DE USA.
100. Joshua Olufemi, Executive Director, Dataphyte Foundation, Abuja, Nigeria.
101. Silas B. Owiti, Head of Policy - Berdicom Tech, Kenya.
102. Symeon Papadopoulos, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece.
103. Olga Papadopoulou, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece.
104. Umut Pajaro Velasquez, Independent Researcher, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina.
105. Prof. Pier Luigi Parcu, Director Centre for a Digital Society, Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, European University Institute, Italy.
106. Katie Pentney, DPhil Candidate in Law, University of Oxford; Visiting Fellow, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Faculty of Law, McGill University, Canada.
107. Zrinjka Perusko, Professor and Director of the Centre for Media and Communication Research, Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Croatia.
108. João Alexandre Peschanski, CEO, Wiki Movimento Brasil.
109. Angela Phillips, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.
110. Jo Pierson, Professor of Responsible Digitalisation, School of Social Sciences, Hasselt University & Professor Media & Communication Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium.
111. Alejandro Pisanty, UNAM - Full Professor, UNAM- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Internet Hall of Fame class of 2021, Mexico.
112. Rob Procter, Warwick University and Alan Turing Institute for Data Science and AI, UK.
113. Toby Prike, Lecturer, University of Adelaide, Australia.
114. Courtney C. Radsch, PhD, Director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at Open Markets Institute, USA.
115. Pradipa P. Rasidi, Research Coordinator, EngageMedia, Indonesia.
116. Rudy Reichstadt, Author and Director of Conspiracy Watch, France.
117. Pauline Renaud, Visiting Lecturer, City St George's, University of London, UK.
118. Achim Rettinger, Professor, Computational Linguistics and Digital Humanities, Trier University, Germany.
119. Urbano Reviglio, Research Associate at the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, European University Institute, Italy.
120. Baptiste Robert, CEO, Predicta Lab, France.
121. Richard Rogers, Professor of New Media & Digital Culture, Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
122. Ramón Salaverría, Professor of Journalism and coordinator of Iberifier, University of Navarra, Spain.
123. Rose Marie Santini, Associated Professor, Founder and Director of Netlab, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
124. Nina Santos, director of Alafia Lab and researcher at the Brazilian National Institute of Science and Technology for Digital Democracy, Brazil.
125. Nikos Sarris, Senior Researcher, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Greece.
126. Silvia Semenzin, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University Complutense of Madrid.
127. Sonja Solomun, Assistant Professor (Research), Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, Canada.
128. Anastasia Stasenko, Associate Lecturer at Sorbonne-Nouvelle, cofounder pleias, France.
129. Sharon Strover, Professor, Journalism and Media and Co-Director, Technology & Information Policy Institute, University of Texas at Austin, USA.
130. Alain Strowel, Professor, Law School, UCLouvain, Belgium.
131. Peter Suber, Senior Advisor on Open Access, Harvard University, USA.
132. Damian Tambini, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
133. Marlyn Tadros, CEO and Executive Director, Digital Democracy Now, USA.
134. Kyle Taylor, Visiting Digital Rights Research Fellow, Peace Centre, Tokyo, Japan.
135. Dhanaraj Thakur, Research Director, Center for Democracy & Technology, USA.
136. Scott Timcke, Research ICT Africa, South Africa.
137. Benjamin Toff, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, USA.
138. Christoph Trattner, Professor, Director, MediaFutures: Research Center for Responsible Media Technology & Innovation, University of Bergen, Norway.
139. Gyan P Tripathi, Advocate, Supreme Court of India.
140. Henry Tuck, Director of Digital Policy, Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), UK.
141. ​​Shenja van der Graaf, Center for Digital Inclusion, University of Twente, Netherlands.
142. Sahana Udupa, Professor of Media Anthropology, LMU Munich, Germany.
143. Jorge Vázquez-Herrero, Associate Professor of Journalism, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
144. Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder of The GovLab (NYC) and The DataTank (Brussels), Research Professor Center for Urban Science and Progress (NYU), USA.
145. Karen Vergara, Advocacy and investigator in Amaranta ONG, Chile.
146. Suzanne Vergnolle, Associate Professor, Cnam, France.
147. Elodie Vialle, Senior Advisor, Digital Safety and Free Expression, Berkman Klein Center Affiliate, Harvard, France.
148. Emily Vraga, Professor, University of Minnesota, USA.
149. Claire Wardle, Associate Professor, Cornell University, USA.
150. Leon Willems, Senior Advisor International Partnerships at Free Press Unlimited, Netherlands.
151. Dolly Wong, Member of the IUCN Climate Crisis Commission, Indonesia.
152. Kate Wright, Associate Professor of Media and Communication, University of Edinburgh and member of IUCN CEC, CEESP, CCC., Scotland.
153. Rufin Zamfir, Program Director - Asymmetric Threats Program, GlobalFocus Center, Romania.
154. Natalia Zuazo, Director Salto Agency, UNESCO consultant, Argentina.