Facebook recently forced AlgorithmWatch to terminate a monitoring project of the Instagram algorithm(1).

1. Given the crucial role that civil society organisations and journalists play in scrutinising platforms’ algorithmic choices and their impact on our public sphere, and given that pressure from platforms on external investigations also targets these kinds of researchers, which solutions is the Commission proposing for civil society organisations and journalists wishing to access platform data, i.e. to researchers without academic affiliations? Would the draft Digital Services Act, especially its Article 31(4), need to be amended?

2. Does the concept of research on systemic risks mentioned in Article 31(2) differ from the concept of ‘public interest research’, and if so, in what way? How does the Commission propose to ensure that the former concept does not preclude data access for further important forms of public interest research, which go beyond identifying and understanding the systemic risks listed in Article 26(1)?

3. In the opinion of the Commission, is any legal authorisation needed for researchers and journalists to collect information provided by online platforms shared with them by volunteer users of such services (e.g. by way of a browser add‑on that scrapes the volunteers’ newsfeeds)?