Mediated access for vetted researchers to a wide range of sensitive platform data is included in a couple of the legislative measures. In particular, the Platform Transparency and Accountability Act has been informed by law professor Nate Persily, co-founder of Social Science One. He resigned from the project in 2020 and has advocated for a legal obligation to be imposed on these companies to share data, and for their legal immunity for doing so. He argues that this legislation is critical to understanding one of the greatest threats to democracy.

As Professor Persily lucidly stated: “Data access is the linchpin for all other social media issues.”