Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LinkedIn ran social experiments on 20M users over 5 years

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 36 posts

Re: LinkedIn ran social experiments on 20M users over 5 years

#11

Post by ziddoap »

ohadron wrote: post #8
sizzle wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be easier to notify people involved in these studies that they may have be adversely affected in the course of the study, rather than having to go decipher a peer reviewed paper on some specialist academic journal site, for the common user at the very least.

I'd imagine the terms of service we all agree to 'notify' us of such consequences.

I'd imagine the parent poster is asking for something a bit more noticeable than a line or two in the ~6800 word ToS.

Re: LinkedIn ran social experiments on 20M users over 5 years

#13

Post by angryasian »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #5

This sort of knee-jerk reaction to a paper is exactly why companies at large prefer to treat their R&D as 'strictly confidential'. Can you imagine how much we could advance if the whole of Industry contributed and published their 'non-secret sauce' research in the same way academia currently does.

I think the only real issue is summarized here.

>“The study has an inherent bias,” Dr. Flick said. “It shows that, if you want to get more jobs, you should be on LinkedIn more.”

Re: LinkedIn ran social experiments on 20M users over 5 years

#14

Post by karaterobot »

xxpor wrote: post #12

NYTimes runs social experiments on users for years: https://open.nytimes.com/how-we-rearchitected-mobile-a-b-tes...

This is mentioned in the article. But yeah, it is ironic. And given that newspaper headlines are pretty much all some people read, I wouldn't say it's any less harmless than suggesting weak ties for your linkedin network.

Re: LinkedIn ran social experiments on 20M users over 5 years

#15

Post by awb »

im3w1l wrote: post #6

Every company with algorithmic recommendations will run experiments to try to improve it according to various metrics. This is the well known knowledge in the industry, not a conspiracy theory. Trying to improve peoples chance of getting a job as opposed to something lame like "engagement" is laudable. The key question is how big the difference between the groups. If the difference is marginal, then I think the knowl…

> The key question is how big the difference between the groups.

2x increase in job opportunities.

> They found that relatively weak social ties on LinkedIn proved twice as effective in securing employment as stronger social ties.

Re: LinkedIn ran social experiments on 20M users over 5 years

#16

Post by fenek »

xxpor wrote: post #12

NYTimes runs social experiments on users for years: https://open.nytimes.com/how-we-rearchitected-mobile-a-b-tes...

Did you read the article? It's right in the article:

> The New York Times uses such tests to assess the wording of headlines and to make decisions about the products and features the company releases.

Re: LinkedIn ran social experiments on 20M users over 5 years

#18

Post by observd »

xxpor wrote: post #12

NYTimes runs social experiments on users for years: https://open.nytimes.com/how-we-rearchitected-mobile-a-b-tes...

> The Times also makes a practice of running what are called A/B tests on the digital headlines that appear on its homepage: Half of readers will see one headline, and the other half will see an alternative headline, for about half an hour. At the end of the test, The Times will use the headline that attracted more readers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/insider/headline-trump-ti...

Re: LinkedIn ran social experiments on 20M users over 5 years

#19

Post by karaterobot »

This doesn't really bother me. As noted, the T&Cs specifically say your data may be used in research. I'm also not entirely sure how they're supposed to improve recommendation algorithms — which we're all clamoring for them to do — without running some form of experiments with them. The question to answer is, did they do it as ethically as they could? Just based on this article, I don't see any unpardonable sins.

Re: LinkedIn ran social experiments on 20M users over 5 years

#20

Post by jklm »

sizzle wrote: post #4
ohadron wrote: post #3

I think this is extremely common for social networks to experiment with this kind of things. Trying out various blends of user experience, social circles and so on to see what best converts users to premium members. Not saying it's right, just that it constantly happens.

It should be easier to notify people involved in these studies that they may have be adversely affected in the course of the study, rather than having to go decipher a peer reviewed paper on some specialist academic journal site, for the common user at the very least.

Looking at the current state of GDPR compliance I’m not sure this would actually be a good experience for most people.
Post reply on HN