Thread by @samidh

Here is a quick primer for external folks who are seeking to make sense of FB's internal research leaks. There is a lot of context that's critical to grasp.🧵...

First recognize that researchers at FB are literally the best in the world at understanding complex issues at the interface of society and technology. They are of the highest character and typically have the most rigorous training. And they are in this to help, not for the $.

Given that integrity teams are organizationally siloed away from the rest of their product orgs, integrity researchers will focus on harms and not give the full picture of a platform's effects because that is literally their job-- and a critical role to play!

In the early stages, user experience research (UXR) will often be low sample size and qualitative. This is a rapid way of identifying research themes to dig into deeper via more scaled and quantitative methods. It illuminates WHY not just WHAT. That doesn't make it less valid.

To get attention for important findings, it isn't unheard of for otherwise rigorous and valid research to have somewhat provocative titles. It is unfortunate this is sometimes necessary, but it is the reality of working in an otherwise noisy environment.

In short, it is disgraceful to dismiss the quality of any of this research or suggest it doesn't identify real problems, but it is also important to internalize the caveat that any individual docs are a work-in-progress view at best.

The natural reaction to this predicament is to call for more research transparency and external access, which is certainly important, but I believe it is a distraction. The real issue we should focus on is around decision-making transparency.

What is undeniable from the #FacebookFiles disclosures is that the company has deep knowledge of its platforms' challenges and is insufficiently addressing them-- to the point that even current employees working on these issues are in a state of despair around the inaction.

Let's shift the convo from evaluating research validity and towards ensuring research is empowered in the decision process. That means ensuring platforms, as self-described public squares, make transparent to the Public their decision docs on all matters of societal import.