public-accountability.org

Platform Positioning & Core Features

LittleSis (operated by the Public Accountability Initiative) is a research platform focused on political and business power, run by a US non-profit public interest organization. Its core mission is to map the interconnected networks between elite political and business figures and organizations, advance accountability for power held by corporations and governments, and provide research support for social justice movements.

Core features of the platform include:

• A publicly searchable power relationship database that lets users look up the basic backgrounds, connection networks and interest ties of individuals and organizations
• A full, open API that lets users access structured data without requiring an access key
• Original investigative research produced in-house, focused on topics such as fossil fuel lobbying, the political influence of billionaires, and ties between the military industry and finance. It also offers power research methodology training for organizers.

Pricing & Key Attributes

All core services on the platform are completely free: the database, API, and research reports are all open access. It only operates on voluntary user donations, its entire technology stack is open source, and its data is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, making it extremely open. Platform data is collaboratively maintained by a volunteer community, and allows users to contribute and update information, which aligns perfectly with its positioning as a public interest project.

Pros, Cons & Target Users

Advantages: Clear positioning, completely open with no access barriers, fills the gap left by commercial databases that do not focus on power transparency, and has a well-designed, developer-friendly API for secondary development.
Disadvantages: Data is heavily concentrated on the United States, with very limited coverage of other regions. It also has an explicit progressive stance, so some users question its objectivity. Additionally, there is no Chinese interface, making it unfriendly to Chinese-speaking users.

Access from China

This website currently requires a proxy to access normally from within China. It is suitable for researchers based in China working on international politics or investigative reporting; it has little utility for ordinary users.