Donating Data and Understanding TikTok: European New School explores platform dynamics

Until the end of March 2023, users of the short video platform TikTok have the opportunity to participate in a research project of the European New School of Digital Studies (ENS) at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder). By donating their TikTok usage data using specially developed software from the DataSkop research network, they are helping to better understand the platform and its algorithm. With their donation, they also help scientists to examine TikTok myths and to better classify the selection of displayed content.

"We need as democrats in a also digital world independent clarification and examination of communicative mass offers such as social media," Peter Kahlert is convinced. He is responsible for study implementation, methodology and data analysis at ENS. "To do this, we need independent access to real data that we can use to examine the platform for fairness, inclusivity and influence." In the long term, he said, research into the dynamics of such platforms as TikTok, YouTube and Facebook is designed to strengthen the right to one's own data, as well as to be able to "make sense of and benefit" from the offerings.

You can learn more about DataSkop's TikTok project here:
https://dataskop.net/wie-tickt-tiktok/

On data donation:
https://dataskop.net/download/

To learn more about the potential offered by so-called platform research and the methodological approach of data donation, see the interview with Peter Kahlert in the Viadrina Log.
 

Background: DataSkop is funded by the federal government as part of the program "Human-Technology Interaction for Digital Sovereignty". It finances innovations that enable users to deal with their data in a reflective way. In addition to the European New School of Digital Studies, which is implementing the first data donation projects, the Department of Design at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences is developing visualization concepts. The University of Paderborn and the Mediale Pfade association are developing media education concepts and workshops in which DataSkop will be used as a learning tool. In a first project in 2021, against the background of the Bundestag election campaign, the algorithms of YouTube were already examined with the help of data donations.