Using innovative methods from the open science movement to promote rigor and transparency of research, Meta and the Center for Open Science will pilot a new approach to industry-academia partnerships for accessing social media data.

The two-year pilot is in the early planning stages and is expected to begin in the coming months. In this pilot, COS will serve as an independent third party and invite a select group of researchers to submit Registered Report proposals. The proposals will include research plans looking at the potential relationship between well-being topics and social media, as well as a request for specific social media data from Meta. If the proposals are accepted after an independent scientific review for quality and rigor, researchers will analyze the relevant data shared by Meta. To advance transparency and enable reproducibility of the findings, the proposals, scientific reviews, analyses, and final reports will be publicly available.