The head of the U.K.’s Office of Communications wants “as many researchers as possible” to “shine a light” on what is happening “behind closed doors” in order to make the internet a safer place. Ofcom chief executive Melanie Dawes made the intervention at the “Internet and Society: The Trans-Atlantic Research Future” conference arranged by Northeastern University’s Internet Democracy Initiative and held at the school’s London campus on May 10.
She took part in a fireside chat alongside Tom Wheeler, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the independent communications regulator in the United States, which was chaired by David Lazer, Northeastern’s distinguished professor of political science and computer and information science. Dawes said access rights to the data that lies behind social media operations and other big online platforms needed to be “strengthened” in Britain to allow experts to use the information.
