Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- design:platforms [2026/09/24 21:45] – Related pages: link security:online_scams (scam campaigns followed off the platform; accounts and comments stay here). Authored by Claude karel.kubicek.claude
+++ design:platforms [2026/09/27 12:02] (current) – Add the messaging-groups route: route-table row, currency row, a paragraph in the per-company section and a Related Pages entry pointing to the new child page Design:Platforms:Messaging channels. Authored by Claude. karel.kubicek.claude
@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 | **Regulator route (DSA Art. 40 vetted researcher)** | **current** | in principle non-public data from a designated VLOP | effectively **zero** papers; see the audit below |
 | **Transparency / ad archive** | **current** | only what the archive covers — usually ads that actually ran | **11** hand-audited papers; own page: [[Design:Platforms:Ad archives]] |
+| **Joining public groups, channels or servers** (Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord) | **current, contested** | the groups your seed could find, from your joining date or back-filled, as a member sees them | **26** hand-audited papers, 21 of them on Telegram; own page: [[Design:Platforms:Messaging channels]] |
 | **Third-party archive of platform data** | **historical** | someone else's crawl, with their gaps — the dumps circulate, the live service does not | **35** papers name Pushshift |
 | **Reuse of a published platform dataset** | **current** | a frozen snapshot you did not design | **383 of 897** name an existing dataset; **208** name one //and no primary collection// |
@@ Line 303: / Line 304: @@
 | Platform research programmes (Meta Content Library via CASD, TikTok Research Tools, YouTube Researcher Program) | **current, but you will be first** | 1, 0 and 2 papers respectively in 5,855 |
 | DSA Art. 40 vetted-researcher route | **current, newly operational, untested here** | Delegated Reg. (EU) 2025/2050; 1 on-point mention in 5,855 papers |
+| Joining public messaging groups and channels | **current; terms forbid most of it; almost all Telegram since 2022** | **26** hand-audited papers, none before 2019; own page: [[Design:Platforms:Messaging channels]] |
 | Ad-transparency archives | **current and productive** | **11** hand-audited papers; {[bouchaud2024_beyond]}, {[benzaamia2026_year]}, {[capozzi2023_thin]}. Own page: [[Design:Platforms:Ad archives]] |
 | Data donation | **current and rising** | 25 papers, 11 of them 2025; {[mccrosky2026_does]}, {[benzaamia2026_year]} |
@@ Line 338: / Line 340: @@
 A per-company page is the wrong axis anyway. What a platform study reuses across companies is the **route in** and the **denominator that route implies**; what does not transfer is the company's current API surface, which is precisely the part that goes stale fastest. This page is organised by route for that reason.
+A second route page followed on 2026-09-27: **[[Design:Platforms:Messaging channels]]**, on joining Telegram, WhatsApp and Discord groups and channels — a route none of the rows above covers, organised by the route rather than by the three companies. Its hand audit found **26** papers in these venues that collect from inside groups, against **76** that name one of the three messengers ten or more times.
 The one page that the evidence //does// support was not on the promised list, and it has now been written: **[[Design:Platforms:Ad archives]]** — ad-transparency archives as a measurement instrument, with a live regulatory driver, real double-sided error characteristics {[bouchaud2024_beyond]}, and a 2026 cross-platform comparison {[benzaamia2026_year]}.
@@ Line 371: / Line 375: @@
   * **[[:Artifacts]]** — depositing data from a channel that may not outlive the paper.
   * **[[Statistics:Biases]]** — donation panels, follower thresholds, and convenience samples.
-  * **[[Design:Platforms:Ad archives]]** — the one access route on this page with its own instrument page: what each of the thirteen DSA ad repositories covers, what an archive structurally cannot contain, and the two-sided error problem.
+  * **[[Design:Platforms:Messaging channels]]** — joining public groups, channels and servers: how they are found, what joining shows you, the denominator, client tooling and terms, and the ethics of recording groups whose members did not join a study.
+  * **[[Design:Platforms:Ad archives]]** — an access route on this page with its own instrument page: what each of the thirteen DSA ad repositories covers, what an archive structurally cannot contain, and the two-sided error problem.
   * **[[Security:Online scams]]** — scam campaigns followed off the platform to the scam website or wallet. Scam accounts, comments and posts as the object stay on this page.
   * **[[provenance:design:platforms]]** — every query, fold, audit and external check behind this page.