We are seeing a growth in transparency and data access laws, to support scrutiny of tech companies. This is particularly the case in the EU, where the Digital Services Act supports researchers (including those outside the EU) to request data from very large platforms and search engines (Facebook, TikTok, Google Search etc.) for researching "systemic risks to the EU". This can, under some conditions, include access to internal company data.
Other rules and other countries, including the AI Act in the EU and implementation of the Data Access and Use Bill in the UK, may also open opportunities for access to platform data. All this builds on existing rules such as Freedom of Information and Subject Access Requests under the GDPR - though these existing rules are also somewhat at threat from political trends.
I can help Fellows who have projects involving access to data from large social media, search, and AI companies consider if and how they could use data access laws; or explain the rationale, debates, and politics underlying these rules and their ongoing development.
Some material for starters:
https://algorithmwatch.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/DSA-40-12-explainer-2.pdf