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Comment by mmooss

5 months ago

> government has any right to data owned by a private company

Another way to look at it is that the people have a right to the data.

No, each person has a right to their own data. But not "the people", it is the opposite actually.

  • That entirely depends on local laws. I don't see why it shouldn't be possible for a democracy to pass a law granting such rights.

[flagged]

  • Don't do that, try and redirect the discussion using some dumb definition/semantics argument. This data is public data on posts that X locks behind a wall in order to force sign-ups and ad views. You and I both know the colloquial definition for "the people", it's literally the electorate of the state in question, in this case all the German citizens who are able to vote for the polticians who passed this public access law. This isn't the government trying to pry private company secrets from poor, downtrodden corporations, it's the government passing a law that public data from social media needs to be easy to access for researchers.

    • It's data the user has agreed to share with the company at agreement with their terms. The data is not public if it is not made public. If it was, they wouldn't need to compel them to hand it over.

      Who are the researchers and what thesis are they exploring?

    • Moreover. Companies operate by Charter, via the will of the people (and the people is you or us). And regardless of any agreements companies have with shareholders, first and foremost, you have a responsibility to the people you live and operate with, to act for the peoples interests, otherwise you don't have a right to exist, contrary to the lack of action in law on this.

      A Charter is a grant, from the people, for any for-profit organization to exist, it comes with certain restrictions and it can be revoked at any time.

      Charter

      a written grant by a country's legislative or sovereign power [The People], by which a body such as a company, college, or city is founded and its rights and privileges defined.

      2 replies →

    • I didn't see it as redirection.

      Per @Qwertox who parented this thread with useful context, it doesn't sound like "open to all" access. That's material.

      E: Here's the quote:

      > This provision requires large online platforms to provide researchers with immediate access to publicly available data

      4 replies →

  • Researches get access, they then publish their studies. The press picks up on these studies and interprets them for "the people", unless "the people" want to read the studies by themselves.

To the extent we’re talking about user activity on the site, the people already have access to this data by dint of being the ones who did the things. Sent a tweet, viewed a tweet, clicked a link. They already have it. So what is being asked of X?