Nearly two years after it promised to do so, Facebook has made a huge chunk of data available for research use in partnership with a new not-for-profit organization, Social Science One.

Why it matters: One way to better understand the impact that Facebook is having on society is to have academic experts analyze the data. The company, though, has been slow to release promised data.

…

Both Social Science One and Facebook acknowledge the effort was harder than anticipated.

“We thought this day would take about two months of work; it has taken 20,” Social Science One’s Gary King and Nathaniel Persily said in a blog post.