{"id":4402231486985,"date":"2026-04-29T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/?p=4402231486985"},"modified":"2026-04-29T09:49:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:49:37","slug":"opinion-damico-techresearch-0426","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/opinion\/opinion-damico-techresearch-0426\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media Jury Verdicts Show the Power of Supporting Research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two juries made history last month. On March 24, a New Mexico jury<\/a> ordered Meta to pay $375 million for failing to warn users about platform dangers and protect children from sexual predators. A day later, a Los Angeles jury<\/a> found Meta and YouTube liable for deliberately building their apps to be addictive while their executives knew and failed to protect their youngest users. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hailed by some as Big Tech\u2019s \u201cBig Tobacco moment<\/a>,\u201d the verdicts are the first legal recognition of what a growing body of technology and media experts have found: that specific design features of digital platforms \u2014 not just the content that flows through them \u2014 influence human well-being in profound and measurable ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind the scenes, philanthropy helped catalyze the growing interdisciplinary research field that laid the foundation for these moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the United States, labs housed at nonprofits and universities are combining social science with advanced computational research methods to study the information environment. Other research centers take those findings and test how platform design features shape behavior. Another group considers that evidence and weighs how public policy or private action might better serve communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This research-to-policy pipeline is still nascent, but it is now spurring advocacy, sparking investigative journalism, and informing public conversation about the role of technology in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the research field that studies technology, media, and information ecosystems faces existential challenges. Scholars\u2019 ability to study online platforms largely depends on whether they can access data that tech companies are increasingly restricting. Researchers have been subject to lawsuits<\/a>, government sanctions<\/a>, and abrupt termination<\/a> of federal funding. Most critically, researchers must compete for limited resources from a small number of funders. And while some foundations have made the connection between their missions and information ecosystems, most do so through funding individual projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Project Funding Has Limited Power<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yet project-based funding, however well intentioned, cannot by itself sustain the research field that makes such findings possible. When foundations fund research projects, they draw on infrastructure \u2014 university labs, data, and computing resources, and the accumulated body of peer-reviewed literature that establish credibility and context. The researchers who propose compelling research projects can do so only because that infrastructure exists, yet project grants replenish this infrastructure only marginally, through universities\u2019 recovery of limited overhead costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project-based funding likewise incentivizes work that is in line with funders\u2019 priorities rather than promoting open-ended scientific inquiry that produces durable knowledge. And for the most uncertain and ambitious scientific questions \u2014 the ones most likely to produce breakthroughs that reshape how courts, policymakers, and the public understand digital platforms \u2014 project-based funding discourages the intellectual risk-taking those questions require.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project-based research funding also does not sufficiently take advantage of the economies of scale that collaborating with research universities might afford. When a foundation funds a university research center, that investment stands on the shoulders of a university\u2019s essential assets, such as alumni donor networks, library resources, and talent pipelines. University research centers also benefit from proximity to scholars with expertise in other academic fields, which can yield unexpected collaboration and results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, project-based funding exacerbates a talent imbalance in Big Tech\u2019s favor. Universities, nonprofit organizations, and technology companies compete for the same pool of elite talent. But absent the promise of sustained general funding, many candidates often choose the private sector\u2019s stability over a university or nonprofit research role. Because of this, tech firms are consistently many steps ahead of civil society, leading to hype-driven marketing and a lack of independent evidence about their products\u2019 societal impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holistic Funding Enables Advances<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To make a more meaningful difference in this space, philanthropy must think bigger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dominant practice of project-based funding for technology and media research unnecessarily constrains the field\u2019s impact. We should instead invest in the institutional infrastructure that allows independent inquiry to flourish and science to progress. Such a field-building approach means investments that help establish or significantly expand research centers at universities and nonprofits. It means awarding flexible, multiyear operating support. It means investing in shared data repositories and technical tools that enable researchers to collect vast amounts of platform data and make it accessible to researchers far and wide. And this approach means supporting the spaces where experts connect, debate, and share knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knight Foundation has taken this more holistic approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since expanding our research investments in 2019, we have committed more than $150 million to building the field of research that studies technology, media, and information ecosystems. We have partnered with universities to establish 10 new academic centers, made institutional investments in nine more, and also scaled several civil society organizations\u2019 research programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our university partners recognize the societal demand for this work and have matched our grants with significant commitments of their own, multiplying the impact of every dollar and helping institutionalize the field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where we awarded project-based grants, we did so sparingly and deliberately \u2014 to test emerging research areas or support field leaders whose institutions were not positioned to host a center \u2014 always as a complement to infrastructure investments, never a substitute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And true to our roots in journalism, we structure our support for research centers to preserve our grantees\u2019 independence, guarding against concerns that our support might unduly influence the findings. We believe this approach strengthens both our grantees\u2019 credibility and our own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independence and Scale for the AI Era<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With this runway, this diverse and interdisciplinary field of experts have established themselves and their institutions as trusted thought leaders. They are frequently cited in public dialogue about social technologies today, and they are regularly called on to share their expertise with legislators, regulators, and courts. And as artificial intelligence stands to transform how society interacts with information and how people communicate with each other, the research field\u2019s continued independence and scale will be vital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustaining that capacity will require foundations and wealthy donors who see this work as mission-critical. Funding a robust body of independent research will give all of society \u2014 advocacy organizations, journalists, policymakers, and the public \u2014 the tools necessary to exercise agency over technology and media today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts have characterized<\/a> the Meta and YouTube court verdicts as a watershed moment akin to Big Tobacco’s unraveling in the 1990s; an apt, but incomplete analogy. Big Tobacco’s accountability moment was supported by decades of research that broke through because of its independence and scale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are only at the beginning of that process for digital platforms. With the right approach, a philanthropy-wide push to fund independent technology research could turn last month\u2019s watershed moment into one that lasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Landmark cases against Meta and YouTube on social media addiction demonstrate why philanthropy needs to think bigger about research funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151181,"featured_media":4402231487025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","cop_editorial_slug":"","cop_asana_id":"","editorial_asana_id":"","editorial_doc_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[82013],"issue":[],"profile":[192996],"role":[191051],"series":[],"topic":[191095,191091],"coauthors":[192995],"class_list":{"0":"post-4402231486985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-opinion","8":"profile-knight-foundation","9":"role-giving","10":"topic-foundation-giving","11":"topic-technology","13":"has-featured-image"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSocial Media Jury Verdicts Show the Power of Supporting Research – Chronicle of Philanthropy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Landmark cases against Meta and YouTube on social media addiction demonstrate why philanthropy needs to think bigger about research funding.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/opinion\/opinion-damico-techresearch-0426\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Social Media Jury Verdicts Show the Power of Supporting Research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Landmark cases against Meta and YouTube on social media addiction demonstrate why philanthropy needs to think bigger about research funding.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/opinion\/opinion-damico-techresearch-0426\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Chronicle of Philanthropy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChronicleOfPhilanthropy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-29T11:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-29T13:49:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/iStock-1499955242-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"A.J. 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