Scholars warn tech firms control the data their research depends on

Research on social media, search engines, and AI sits inside a conflict the rest of science rarely faces: the companies whose products scholars study own the data those scholars need, and they also pay for much of the work. That is the case Joseph Bak-Coleman, Cailin O'Connor, Carl Bergstrom, and Jevin West lay out in a Perspective posted to arXiv in October 2025.

The abstract puts the structural problem plainly. "The data necessary for scientific progress are generated and controlled by the same industry that might be subject to evidence-based regulation," the authors write, adding that technology companies "continue to be, a major source of funding for this field." Those two asymmetries together, they argue, "raise significant concerns about the potential for undue industry influence on the scientific record."

The piece is framed as a call for institutional repair rather than a specific policy fix. "Science faces unique challenges in the context of technology research that will require strengthening existing safeguards and constructing wholly new ones," the authors conclude.

The Perspective runs 17 pages with two figures and is classified under Social and Information Networks and Human-Computer Interaction. The abstract itself does not name specific companies, studies, or safeguards; the detail of which existing mechanisms the authors judge inadequate, and which new ones they propose, sits in the body of the paper.