Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#121

Post by zwkrt » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

ARehmat wrote: post #110

seattledev wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is a way. You left them specifically opt in to it, you provide them disclosure documents of what's being tested, and you provide free access to mental health resources.

It would be interesting to find out if these experiments lead to any suicides etc. Although I suppose that Facebook is not interested in releasing that type of information.

Which drop of rain caused the dam to break? In the book Good Omens there is a demon who considered himself the best not because he was the best deceiver or torturer, but because of his ability to cause mass malcontent.

The real evil isn’t in the experiment, it’s that the researchers found that Facebook makes people’s lives worse. How many suicides are caused by Facebook’s investors? Whether they can mitigate it this way or that is splitting hairs.

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#122

Post by mgraczyk » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

urthor wrote: post #117

seattledev wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data scientist means someone who's had classes in stats and knows how to use software to analyze data. They don't cover how to run experiment and don't cover ethics

To be fair, the profile of a data scientist at a F500 non tech company and at a company like FB is slightly different. Facebook's data science crew is known for being heavier on the stats lighter on the software (relatively speaking) and probably can design a good experiment. That said, anyone who signs up for a job at Facebook doesn't give a shit about ethical design of experiments.

Hi, I used to work on ML and ran experiments like this one at FB. Just want to point out that the effect of experiments like this on an individual is smaller than the effect of making the app start 0.1 seconds faster, or retraining the network used to filter hate speech. The only reason the effect is significant is because N>650k, so tiny effect sizes can be detected.

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#123

Post by Google234 » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 1:41 AM UTC

yeuxardents wrote: post #4

This was the last straw for me, thats when I permabanned facebook from my life. This was an unauthorized, unguided, unethical, mass psychological experiment on human beings. Anyone involved should have gone to jail for crimes against humanity.

Would you be happier if FB censored every negative post on their site? I’m sure there would be less unhappiness but would it be “better”?

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#124

Post by ajdude » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #116

jb775 wrote: post #34

I noticed during the election that whenever I glanced at the fb "watch" video section, it was videos of guys getting into fist fights, or videos containing disturbing violence. I don't ever watch or search for videos like this, so it's not like it was selected based on my watch history or something. At the time, I figured it was a psychological trick to suck me into viewing more ads since violence has that "can't loo…

I worked at Facebook on ranking systems at that time. No, facebook was not trying to intentionally provoke any emotional response. They were trying to increase product metrics like number of videos watched, subject to constraints on the % of watches that include things like violence or bullying. Ultimately the goal is to make the Facebook product good so they can continue selling ads. Facebook would make all its user…

> Nobody at Facebook is trying to manipulate you

Except when they’re running psychological experiments to purposely manipulate you into being sad

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#125

Post by hackinthebochs » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #107

hackinthebochs wrote: post #16

I still don't see why I should be outraged over this. A user of facebook already consents to facebook displaying whatever content on their feed facebook chooses. Why should facebook require extra consent to gather scientific evidence on the effects of the content being displayed, given they are only analyzing data they already gather?

Because "consent" is worthless if it is not informed consent. And it's neither expected by, nor in the interest of the user to be emotionally manipulated. By the way, the whole "intelligent" newsfeed is likely not expected either. My guess is, most people sign up to Facebook with the expectation to see the update of all their friends, nit be subject to Facebook's AI games and product research.

But "emotional manipulation" may already be happening by using the website. If the user gave consent to that, I don't see what difference the act of gathering scientific data makes. Your argument seems to be against the current bar of consent that facebook and similar sites are required to get.

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#126

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 3:27 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #50

Aunche wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's technically correct but implies malicious intent. It's like saying "Pfizer deliberately injected a substance in people that kills them" to describe a failed drug trial.

"it creates bad feelings" If this is the hypothesis they are testing for, the problem is they subjected people to a psychological experiment without consenting to it, for the ultimate purpose of their own financial gain. How is that not malicious intent?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#127

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 3:30 AM UTC

bserge wrote: post #8

Yes, indeed, we should all learn not to use our emotions in online discussions. People will say and do things that they would never say in real life, even under their real name, because of the disconnection from the actual person hearing/reading/seeing that. Funnily enough, this is how I quit Imgur for good. It's amazing. I posted something that I believed was right and got downvoted to hell. So I started asking peop…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#128

Post by hackinthebochs » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

yeuxardents wrote: post #4

This was the last straw for me, thats when I permabanned facebook from my life. This was an unauthorized, unguided, unethical, mass psychological experiment on human beings. Anyone involved should have gone to jail for crimes against humanity.

People keep using the words "psychological experiment" as if it proves the point. No, its just a more emotional description of what happened. Why, exactly, is controlled manipulation to gather scientific data require extra consent than doing random manipulation they already have consent for?

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#129

Post by vickychijwani » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:07 AM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #105

mgraczyk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of this conception of experimental ethics does this violate? Facebook's experiment did not directly cause the emotions, the posted content for that. Even if it did, this sort of thing is well within the bounds of normal experimentation with large systems. This is similar to claiming that traffic experiments which change the flow of cars, in term causing some people to experience more traffic and become unh…

> Facebook's experiment did not directly cause the emotions, the posted content for that. Facebook definitely caused the emotions - by deliberately choosing to show particular content. > This is similar to claiming that traffic experiments which change the flow of cars, in term causing some people to experience more traffic and become unhappy, are unethical. Do you think traffic experiments are unethical? If the obje…

> If the objective of the traffic experiment had been to deliberately get a certain group of cars stuck in a traffic jam, this would absolutely be unethical.

A closer analogue would be a traffic experiment designed to gauge the emotional effects of a particular route. That's an important difference.

The article itself says the experiment was designed to look for evidence of emotional contagion, which is quite different from "it was designed to make people sad".

Also, in another thread it's pointed out that the effect sizes from this study were extremely small - something like 0.3% more negative words were used by ~150k people. The effect is said to be on the same scale as any minor UI change, like a size/color change of the "like" button. So it's hard to see this as anything other than folks looking for a reason to get outraged.

Re: Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

#130

Post by yeuxardents » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #128

yeuxardents wrote: post #4

This was the last straw for me, thats when I permabanned facebook from my life. This was an unauthorized, unguided, unethical, mass psychological experiment on human beings. Anyone involved should have gone to jail for crimes against humanity.

People keep using the words "psychological experiment" as if it proves the point. No, its just a more emotional description of what happened. Why, exactly, is controlled manipulation to gather scientific data require extra consent than doing random manipulation they already have consent for?

Because this is clearly altering emotional states. Is it known whether any individuals became more sad than others and committed suicide as a cause? No? Well thats because studies like this are required to go through IRB and review processes to ensure outcomes like that DO NOT HAPPEN. That did not happen here.