Opening the Black Box: Platform Data, Governance, and Accountability

  • Panel
  • Orangerie
  • Wednesday 20.05 — 11:50 - 13:05

Organising Institution

Knight-Georgetown Institute (KGI)

United States

The Knight-Georgetown Institute (KGI) is dedicated to connecting independent research with technology policy and design. KGI serves as a central hub for the growing network of scholarship that seeks to shape how technology is used to produce, disseminate, and access information. KGI is designed to provide practical resources that policymakers, journalists, and private and public sector leaders can use to tackle information and technology issues in real time. Georgetown University and the Knight Foundation came together to launch the institute in 2024. Learn more about KGI at https://kgi.georgetown.edu.
  • Academic 2
  • Business 1
  • Policy 3
As public concern and regulatory interest in digital platforms intensifies, a central challenge remains: how to enable access to platform data by researchers, civil society, and journalists. Building on KGI’s recent report “Better Access,” this panel examines opportunities and obstacles associated with independent researcher access to platform data. Drawing on emerging regulatory frameworks in the EU, UK, US, and beyond, the panel will unpack barriers to independent research, including corporate resistance, regulatory fragmentation, resource constraints, and geopolitical dynamics. Panelists will describe effective strategies to increase access to data while maintaining strong protections for privacy and security. Ultimately, the panel will help chart a path towards meaningful and sustainable independent study of platform design and impacts. The panel is jointly organized by the Knight-Georgetown Institute and the Institute for Information Law.

Questions to be answered

  1. Why is platform data essential for understanding our current world?
  2. What barriers do journalists, researchers, and civil society organizations face in accessing platform information?
  3. How can regulators and researchers overcome barriers - such as corporate resistance, legal uncertainty, and a rapidly evolving AI training data landscape - to advance effective research?
  4. What data infrastructures are necessary for ethical and privacy advancing research?

Moderator

Mark Scott

Atlantic Council’s Democracy & Tech Initiative - International

Mark Scott is a senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Democracy + Tech Initiative. In this role, he is engaged in expanding ongoing work around comparative digital policy, regulation, and governance, as well as efforts linked to the European Union’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. He currently sits on the international advisory board of RegulAite, a project at the University of Amsterdam dedicated to artificial intelligence policymaking. He is also a research fellow at the Centre for Digital Governance at the Hertie School in Berlin.

Speaker

Peter Chapman

Knight-Georgetown Institute - United States

Peter Chapman is Associate Director with the Knight-Georgetown Institute (KGI) at Georgetown University, where he leads work on digital platform and AI governance, research, and litigation. He brings extensive experience at the intersection of responsible technology, human rights, and policy. Previously, he served as Technology & Human Rights Lead at Article One and as a Senior Legal Counsel at Twitter, where he co-led the development of Twitter's Content Governance Initiative.

Speaker

Catalina Goanta

Utrecht University - Netherlands

Catalina Goanta is an associate professor in consumer law and technology at Utrecht University, and the Principal Investigator of the HUMANads ERC Starting Grant (’22-’27), focused on studying fairness in social media content monetisation using methods from law, computer science and media studies. She is a member of the dispute resolution body of the Dutch advertising self-regulatory organisation (Reclame Code Commissie), and additionally trains consumer protection authorities in the digital investigation of consumer violations in the context of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network’s E-Enforcement Academy.

Speaker

Raziye Buse Çetin

AI Forensics - France

Raziye Buse Çetin is the Head of AI Policy at AI Forensics, a European non-profit investigating algorithmic systems and platform power, and a lecturer in EU AI Policy at ELISAVA School of Engineering & Design. Her work focuses on AI governance, platform regulation, and the societal impacts of large-scale algorithmic systems, with particular attention to the EU AI Act, the Digital Services Act, and accountability mechanisms. She work across research, policy, advocacy, and public discourse, supporting institutions in navigating the regulatory, political, and societal implications of AI systems.

Speaker

Victor  Alamercery

European Commission - France

Victor Alamercery is a Case Handler in the European Commission’s Digital Services Act (DSA) team, where he contributes to the implementation and enforcement of the DSA data access regime. Victor is a political scientist and previously worked on DSA implementation at ARCOM, the French media regulator, which has been empowered as a Digital Services Coordinator under the DSA.