Without quantifiable evidence of harm (or lack of it) — driven by independent outside access to platform data, or the ability for people to research the inner workings of these social media giants — there is no way to make effective online safety legislation, uphold people’s freedom of expression, and hold companies to account when, inevitably, things go wrong. But as other countries bring online similar data access regimes, the hope is to provide a route for others to follow that will build greater capacity for researchers to conduct this much-needed work; support regulators in navigating the inherent difficulties in opening up such platforms’ public data to outsiders; and ensure that people’s social media data is protected and secured, at all cost, from harm and surveillance.