The guy providing the data in the CA scandal was a credible scientist at the Universities of Toronto and Cambridge. His social media data collection back then w

The guy providing the data in the CA scandal was a credible scientist at the Universities of Toronto and Cambridge. His social media data collection back then was considered part of his legitimate research activities. It was funded by research grants, and nobody had a problem with that. That is, until some of the data he collected was potentially used for political microtargeting. The thing is, Facebook and the other social media companies have never had any real interest to support research projects that collect and analyze their data. Why should they? However, since the public outrage over the CA event they basically have carte blanche to deny all these requests - even from seemingly credible scientists - and just say: "Hey, we just want to prevent another CA."