Writing for Data & Society Research Institute blog Points, Angela Xiao Wu summarizes research published with Harsh Taneja and critiques data science by observing the distortions of ‘measurement conditions’ inherent in platforms designed to influence human behavior.

These apparent strengths of data for social research are outweighed by a problem in what we call the “measurement conditions”: platform data are platforms’ records of their own behavioral experimentation. Trying to know ourselves through platform data tends to yield partial and contorted accounts of human behavior that conceal platform interventions.

Wu, A. X. (2020, July 28). How not to know ourselves. Points. Data & Society Research Institute. https://points.datasociety.net/how-not-to-know-ourselves-5227c185569