Researchers concerned as tech giants choke off access to data

It may infuriate social science researchers to have access to social media data restricted (the less access politicians or governments get the better!), but the key driver here is the privacy of individual users of social media. They have objected to 'their' data being used by third parties without their permission and the social media companies are (slowly) bowing to their wishes. How do you distinguish between genuine academic research and that which is being done for profit or political gain? Can a mechanism be devised whereby individual users can indicate who they are prepared to allow to access their data? And would informed consent provide sufficient data for the social scientists to analyse?