Have you ever wanted to understand and work with tech data?

My name is Matt Motyl, and I'm a technologist and behavioral data scientist who worked in a data intensive role for one of the very large online platforms. When I was a professor teaching statistics, I knew that many students came into those courses dreading them. As someone who loves statistics and data (probably too much), I always tried to strip out the needlessly complicated jargon and symbols, and help students to see how data and stats are actually useful and not anywhere near as scary as they first thought. When I moved into industry, I found the same thing to be true: there is a lot of unnecessary jargon and confusing-looking things to deal with just to access the data. So, I wanted to create a resource that would help demystify platform data for those outside these companies.

One of the projects I led as a Resident Fellow at the Integrity Institute for the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) was writing a brief handbook on how online platforms collect and structure data, and how people outside of these companies can access and use data from these companies. Tha handbook was well-received, but it was also written like a handbook -- not as an interactive guide with exercises to help readers practice what the handbook was trying to teach them to do.

Therefore, I built this interactive web version to enhance understanding by providing more explanations, practical examples, and hands-on tools to help you master obtaining, analyzing, and using platform data. My hope is to make this an evergreen resource that promotes data literacy and is as helpful to as many people as possible. I am not being paid for my work on this site or for the infrastructure costs of maintaining it, but I will try to add new content, features, and keep it up to date as best I can. If you have questions on anything on this website, want to flag anything that is out-of-date (e.g., platform API changes), or have suggestions for new content or features, please let me know on this Google form. If you'd like to discuss more personalized assistance, consulting, or training, please email me at matt.motyl@gmail.com.

While the original handbook was part of a contract between the Integrity Insitute and EDMO, and was reviewed by Jeff Allen, a co-founder and the Chief Research Officer, Spencer Gurley, the Research Lead, and Sofia Bonilla, the Strategy & Partnerships Lead at the Integrity Institute, and by representatives from EDMO, this website has not been reviewed or approved of in any formal way by those organizations. The website generally follows from the handbook, but any divergences should be interpreted as my own perspective and not necessarily that of the Integrity Institute or EDMO.