Popular social media platform Facebook announced Monday it would make its data available to academics studying the impact of social media on elections, part of an effort to prevent manipulation of social platforms.
Facebook said some 60 researchers from 30 academic institutions across 11 countries were selected under a review process by the Social Science Research Council and the independent group Social Science One.
According to the report, the social media giant has began the research initiative last year after revelations of foreign influence campaigns on the 2016 US election and the Brexit vote in Britain.
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A blog post by Facebook executives Elliot Schrage and Chaya Nayak said, "To assure the independence of the research and the researchers, Facebook did not play any role in the selection of the individuals or their projects and will have no role in directing the findings or conclusions of the research,"
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Schrage and Nayak further wrote. "Some of these steps include building a process to remove personally identifiable information from the data set and only allowing researcher access to the data set through a secure portal." Gary King and Nathaniel Persily of Social Science One said in a statement the researchers will seek to move swiftly to help social networks improve their security and integrity.