Request for Basic Data

We are making a simple request to social media platforms for their most viewed content — specifically, the top 1,000 most viewed posts, per platform, per EU member state.

— AlgorithmWatch, DSA 40 Data Access Collaboratory, Mozilla Foundation, and other civil society and research orgs, inside and outside the EU

We believe society has a right to basic data from social media platforms, starting with the most viewed content.

Every day, EU citizens consume a vast stream of content on the largest platforms, shaping what they think and do.

The most viewed content in this stream is, by its nature, extremely public. And as you’d expect, it accounts for a large share of activity on platforms, with a study of a random sample from YouTube finding that 94% of views came from just 4% of videos. But — absurdly — we don’t know what this most viewed content is, because social media platforms don’t share lists of it.

Unlike with TV, there is no Network Guide to give us an idea of what’s being broadcast.

That means we’re missing a critical tool to understand how these platforms are influencing society, and to monitor harmful content in a timely way. For instance, we can’t quickly catch a hostile campaign to influence an election, or a viral trend that’s harming kids — or anything else that could cause systemic risks in the EU.

The lack of basic data around this content also makes it harder to assess platforms’ recommender systems, since to better understand them we need to know the content they are pushing the most.

To address this dangerous lack of transparency, we are making a request to the largest social media platforms for their most viewed content — specifically, top 1,000 most viewed posts, per platform, per EU member state for an initial six month period.

We are making this request in relation to the EU’s Digital Services Act, which, under Article 40, Paragraph 12, mandates that platforms give access to public data ‘without undue delay’.

To reduce the burden on platforms, we are making this request directly, jointly, and in a simple, standardised way, rather than each of us using the various — sometimes hard-to-find — data request mechanisms that platforms have set up following the entry into application of the EU Digital Services Act.

We look forward to platforms starting to provide this basic data three weeks from today, October 3rd (by October 27).