IGF 2025 Lightning Talk #89 Enabling Researcher Access to Platforms in the Global South

In recent years, disinformation, hate speech, and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) have threatened the safety and integrity of online spaces, calling into question the trustworthiness of the internet. At the same time, whistleblower leaks have revealed how little we understand about the internal policies and design of platforms, as well as their impact on the online information ecosystem. In this context, access to platform data for independent public interest research is emerging as an important mechanism for platform accountability. Several jurisdictions have introduced legislative proposals to this end, and scholars are deliberating upon models to foster international collaborative research that in turn can result in greater access by partners. Most notably, the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) has mandated researchers' access to data for very large online platforms and search engines. In our lightning talk, we discuss the opportunities and challenges that researcher access to platform data presents for jurisdictions in the Global South. As the DSA makes platform data available for independent external scrutiny like never before, it raises new hopes and possibilities for examining platforms’ moderation and curation of user-generated content and advertisements. This development is especially relevant for the Global South, where platforms invest little in understanding local socio-political contexts and languages, leading to unchecked proliferation of hate speech and disinformation targeted at marginalised communities. Hence, Global South researchers, civil society, policymakers and the public at large will immensely benefit from increased transparency for hitherto inscrutable platforms. Increased transparency can be the first step to crafting better regulation and fostering innovation in platform design to build a safe and resilient internet, enabling an inclusive online environment for even the most marginalised. However, for researcher access to be meaningful, several factors need to be carefully deliberated in light of the local context of each country. We discuss how local factors might implicate important questions on the qualifications and vetting of researchers, academic freedom, privacy of users, funding and infrastructure for data processing. We also highlight how existing legislation governing intermediary liability, data protection, and law enforcement access to user data might risk such a data access mechanism being appropriated by the state for direct and collateral surveillance and censorship. Through this session, we aim to discuss key findings from our work on platform transparency in the Global South, including our forthcoming publication on “Platform Transparency under the EU’s DSA: Opportunities and Challenges for the Global South”. We also hope to engage with the audience, especially members of the Global South, to discuss the aspirations and anxieties that researchers' access to platform data evokes in their jurisdictions. Through these discussions, we seek to chart out pathways to meaningfully enable researcher access to platform data in the Global South, to foster digital trust and to develop avenues toward greater resilience of platform infrastructures that safeguard users’ rights.

While all our speakers will be onsite at IGF, we plan for our session to be conducted in a hybrid format to enable engagement with a diverse pool of stakeholders from different regions. We will strive to facilitate meaningful engagement for both online and on-site participants. In order to make the session interactive, we are allocating the second half of the session for questions and comments from the audience. The session will include a PowerPoint presentation highlighting our research findings, along with prompts and open questions designed to encourage audience engagement in the discussion to help chart pathways to meaningfully enable researcher access in the Global South. Participants can provide their inputs either by speaking in person, typing in questions or comments on the live chat on the official online participation platform. Our on-site and online moderators will monitor participant questions and comments, flag them for the speakers, and highlight any emerging themes. In addition, we have previously relied on online polls such as Menti Meter, accessible by scanning a QR code and will use it to drive discussions and make the sessions more interactive and collaborative. We will encourage the onsite participants to also use these tools so that they are able to engage with those joining online.