The spread of misinformation on the social media platforms have become  the main challenge faced by the social networks. As a part of its efforts to stop the spread of hate speech, Facebook has banned the personal accounts of academics who researched ad transparency and the spread of misinformation on the social network. The company says that the group has violated its term of service by scraping user data without permission. But the academics say they are being silenced for exposing problems on Facebook’s platform.

The researchers were part of NYU Ad Observatory, a project created to examine the origin and spread of political ads on Facebook. As the group explained in a blog post in May, their aim is to uncover who pays for political ads and how they are being targeted. Such work has important implications for understanding the spread of disinformation on Facebook, as the company does not fact-check political ads.

The researchers had created a browser plug-in called Ad Observer, which automatically collects data on what political ads users are being shown and why those ads are being targeted to them. As per its website, the plug-in does not collect any personally-identifying information, including users’ name, Facebook ID number, or friend list.

Data collected by Ad Observer is then made publicly available to researchers and journalists who use the information to reveal trends and problems on Facebook’s platform.

Facebook offers some of this information voluntarily through its Ad Library, but not all. Laura Edelson, an NYU researcher involved in the project, and whose personal account was banned by Facebook, says the company wants to end independent scrutiny of its platform.

Facebook says it banned the researchers because they violated the social network’s terms of service, and that the Ad Observer plug-in “collected data about Facebook users who did not install or consent to the collection.” Facebook’s wording suggests the researchers were collecting data about private individuals without consent but, as reported by Protocol.  

Facebook certainly has good reason to be wary of third-parties collecting data from its site. The Cambridge Analytical scandal was only made possible because the company did not exercise proper oversight over how information could be scraped from its platform..

Facebook now says it’s required to ban the NYC researchers under these FTC guidelines, as well as disabling their associated Pages and platform access.