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For years there's been a debate in my research community (social computing/HCI) about whether there is an ethical problem with researchers from tech companies publishing based on data only they have access to. There are a few important nuances to this debate: [Thread] https://twitter.com/oliviasolon/status/1341780460049985544
(1) A lot of this kind of research is EXTREMELY impressive because of that data/access. The statistical power you can get with billions of users or massive amounts of data dwarfs what an academic researcher could do.
(2) There are legitimate privacy/ethical reasons why tech companies might not want to or even shouldn't share data with researchers, especially without user consent. I mean look at what happened with the Facebook emotional contagion study. https://cmci.colorado.edu/~cafi5706/UnexpectedExpectationsNMSPreprint.pdf
(3) This problem has been part of the catalyst for attempts at research partnerships (e.g., the Facebook/Social Science One thing) but it's proven to be surprisingly hard in part because of that privacy tension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Science_One
(4) And it goes without saying that it is VERY IMPORTANT that we understand e.g. what these technologies are doing to our society. But... how comfortable are we with a lot of the research on that coming from researchers at those companies?
And so yeah, this is a big part of the reason why. Regardless of how big of a problem this is - and I have a LOT of respect for individual industry researchers who I know to be very ethical - even the possibility undermines trust in research findings. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-research-focus-idUSKBN28X1CB
And to top it off, independent academic researchers with some industry access typically have some kind of tie to that company (e.g., grant funding, internship) and might not be trusted either.
(I mean, heck, I was once accused of being bought off by Google FOR LIFE because they once gave me $7.5k to live in the bay area for the summer while I worked at a non-profit.) https://cfiesler.medium.com/how-not-to-buy-an-academic-ec74e8937a1d
Oh and also there are people who constantly point "HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY WORK FOR AN UNETHICAL COMPANY LIKE FACEBOOK/GOOGLE/ETC" fingers at any industry researcher. When those are often some of the most important places to be doing research.
It's also possible that companies will decide that none of this is worth the hassle and cut off basic research and stop incentivizing or even allowing their researchers to publish.
So my point is, this is an INSANE TANGLE OF VALUE TENSIONS. And solutions to pieces of this make other things worse so it's hard to know what the right solution is. But.
"publish things that make us look good" is definitely the wrong one.
"publish things that make us look good" is definitely the wrong one.
