Today we formally launch the RDR Research Lab, a new resource that guides digital rights researchers through the process of designing, executing, and promoting research on platform accountability anywhere in the world, using RDR’s methodology and standards. This guide is based on our experience producing the RDR Corporate Accountability Index and Big Tech and Telco Giants Scorecards, as well as on feedback from civil society partners who have published their own RDR-style reports.
Civil society organizations around the world have been inspired by RDR’s mission, using our open methodology and standards to push technology companies toward greater respect for, and protection of, people’s rights to privacy and freedom of expression. Between 2016 and 2021, nine research reports were published around the globe that adapted our methodology to evaluate the policies of tech companies and their potential impact on human rights in local environments. These included studies on Pakistan, India, Kenya, Senegal, Russia, the Arab region, New York City, Iran, and Ukraine.
Most of these efforts were undertaken independently, with little to no direct support from RDR. But in 2021 we were awarded two grants that enabled us to provide direct guidance and technical assistance to civil society organizations around the world, and particularly in the global south. Our goals are both to expand the network of researchers and advocates using RDR’s methodology to hold tech power to account and, through their research, to help equalize an information asymmetry that has allowed tech companies to pay less attention to their platforms’ human rights risks in the majority world than at home.
Still, even with added resources, we can’t be everywhere at once, so we created the Research Lab to explain our research process and approach and make it easier for new researchers to get involved. The Lab consists of four sections—Prepare, Collect, Analyze, and Apply—each of which offers guidance for a specific part of the research process. We describe the Lab in more detail below.
To develop the Lab, we tried to better understand how people interact with our methodology, looked at potential roadblocks in evaluating a range of tech companies and digital services across the globe, and considered how researchers could make the most of our standards. So far, we have helped guide several local digital rights organizations to publish new research, in Lesotho, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and in Cambodia, Indonesia, Maldives, Nepal, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Coming up are adaptations from across Eastern Europe, Southern Africa, and South America.
Diving Into the Research Lab
When you access the RDR Research Lab landing page, you will see buttons for four sections, dedicated to the distinct stages of a project:
- Prepare(ing your research)
- Collect(ing your data)
- Analyze(ing your data)
- Apply(ing your research)
In the Prepare section, researchers can read about the fundamentals of writing a project brief and learn how to structure a research project based on our standards. Templates are provided in this section that can be used to carry out a risk assessment and a jurisdictional analysis of the targeted region/country. Other tools for complementing the research and policy analysis are also included, alongside examples drawn from RDR’s indicators.
In the Collect section, you’ll find the research guidance needed to directly evaluate companies, based on our 58 indicators. This guidance is available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, and Portuguese. We’ve also included recommendations for software tools that researchers can use to improve their workflow. In both the Prepare and Collect sections, we have included useful checklists to help you keep track of what tasks you need to complete at each stage of the process.
In the Analyze section, you’ll find suggested approaches for studying the data collected and creating narratives that highlight your research findings. You will also find recommendations for data visualization tools, along with a tutorial for learning how to create your first charts.
Finally, in the Apply section, we provide tips and best practices that will help you strategically engage with tech companies, as well as ideas for potential advocacy actions targeting other stakeholders, including policymakers and regulators.
Through our recent partnerships, RDR has helped organizations establish baselines for tech accountability in countries where the industry had, in many cases, so far dodged real scrutiny. Whether through the examination of new types of companies or by evaluating the local subsidiaries of corporations already ranked in our Big Tech and Telco Giants scorecards, we hope to continue seeing greater scrutiny of the tech industry globally. And we believe the RDR Research Lab will play a key role in facilitating that work.
We want to hear from you! If you have ideas or feedback about the materials in the Research Lab, or if you’re interested in carrying out your own research using our methods and standards, write to us at partnerships@rankingdigitalrights.org.
