Expert Working Groups

KGI convenes expert working groups (EWGs) that bring together relevant experts to produce policy options and tools based on existing knowledge and evidence. KGI builds EWGs by inviting selected volunteer contributors from across academia, industry, civil society, journalism, and practitioner communities to engage in a focused collaboration on a specific policy topic over the course of 6-12 months or more. The goal of each EWG is to produce non-partisan resources of broad utility to policymakers and industry decisionmakers. Learn more about KGI Expert Working Groups here.

Expert Working Group on Measuring Problematic Use

KGI’s Expert Working Group on Measuring Problematic Use is developing practical, evidence-based approaches to measuring problematic use of social media and generative AI chatbots. The EWG supports immediate legal and regulatory needs by evaluating and recommending effective methods for measuring problematic use. These approaches may draw on a combination of behavioral trace data, self-report data, and other sources to generate metrics that can be used in policy contexts, even in the absence of settled scientific consensus. The EWG will also articulate recommendations for a longer-term research agenda focused on developing more comprehensive ways of understanding problematic use, including how platform design contributes to harm in cumulative or indirect ways over time.

Expert Working Group on Public Platform Data

KGI’s Expert Working Group on Public Platform Data brings together leading researchers, advocates, and journalists with deep and diverse experience related to social media platform transparency. The EWG works to proactively articulate a definition for Publicly Available Platform Data, a framework for what kind of platform data should be made publicly available, under what circumstances, and in what format. The EWG is designing  a uniform, cross-industry framework that allows for understanding the online information ecosystem as a whole, not in platform-specific silos mediated by ever-dwindling and highly structured researcher access opportunities. Read the group’s work in Better Access: Data for the Common Good.

Expert Working Group on Recommender Systems

KGI’s Expert Working Group on Recommender Systems brings together researchers at the frontier of online recommender system design with leading civil society and industry practitioners. With expertise spanning computer science, data science, economics, social science, law, and policy, the group works to articulate how the algorithmic feeds that power today’s online experiences can be designed to put users’ interests first, and how public policy can support that goal. Read the group’s work in Better Feeds: Algorithms that Put People First.