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Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

science.org

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Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#11

Post by terminalshort »

Grimblewald wrote: post #7

From history we know that research left unchecked and unrestricted can start leading to some really dark and horrible things. Right now I think it's a problem that social media companies can do research without answering to the same regulatory bodies that regular academics / researchers would. For example, they don't have to answer to independant ethics committees / reviews. They're free to experiement as they like o…

What counts as research? If I make UI changes, I guess it's ok to roll it out to everyone, because that's not an experiment, but if I roll it out to 1%, then that's research? If I own two stores and decide to redecorate one and see if sales increase vs the other store, do I need government approval?

Also I would like an example of something a social media company does that you wouldn't be able to get approval to do on animals. That claim sounds ridiculous.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#12

Post by windowpains »

imiric wrote: post #9
AlexandrB wrote: post #6

Same as it ever was. You see the same kind of thing is the food industry, pharmaceutical industry, tobacco industry, fossil fuel industry, etc. On the one hand it's almost inevitable. Who (outside of the government) is going to care enough about the results of stuff like this to fund it if not the industry affected? You also often need the industry's help if you're doing anything that involves large sample sizes or s…

The people in these industries are collectively responsible for millions of preventable deaths, and they, their families, and generations of their offspring are and will be living the best lives money can buy. And yet one person kills a CEO, and they're a terrorist.

You say “a CEO” like it’s just a fungible human unit. In reality, a CEO is much much more valuable than a median human. Think of how many shareholders are impacted, many little old grey haired grannies, dependent on their investments for food, shelter and medical expenses. When you think of the fuller context, surely you see how sociopathic it is to shrug at the killing of a CEO, let alone a CEO of a major corporation. Or maybe sociopathy is the norm these days, for the heavily online guys.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#15

Post by shimman »

terminalshort wrote: post #11
Grimblewald wrote: post #7

From history we know that research left unchecked and unrestricted can start leading to some really dark and horrible things. Right now I think it's a problem that social media companies can do research without answering to the same regulatory bodies that regular academics / researchers would. For example, they don't have to answer to independant ethics committees / reviews. They're free to experiement as they like o…

What counts as research? If I make UI changes, I guess it's ok to roll it out to everyone, because that's not an experiment, but if I roll it out to 1%, then that's research? If I own two stores and decide to redecorate one and see if sales increase vs the other store, do I need government approval? Also I would like an example of something a social media company does that you wouldn't be able to get approval to do o…

Are you being serious right now or just engaging in "asking questions" to suppress others thoughts? Why are these types of comments so common on this site? No obviously we aren't in fact talking about making basic code changes, but maybe if those changes are being consistently done that clearly show users getting more depressed or alienated it should be questioned more and finally regulated.

Fun fact, the last data privacy law the US passed was about video stores not sharing your rentals. Maybe it's time we start passing more, after all it's not like these companies HAVE to conduct business this way.

It's all completely arbitrary, there's no reason why social media companies can't be legally compelled to divest from all user PII and be forced to go to regulated third party companies for such information. Or force social media companies to allow export of data or forcing them to follow consistent standards so competitors can easily enter the realm and users can easily follow too.

You can go for the throat and say that social media companies can't own an advertising platform either.

Before you go all "oh no the government should help the business magnates more, not the users." I suggest you study how monopolies existed in the 19th century because they look no different than the corporate structure of any big tech company, and see how government finally regulated those bloodsuckers back then.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#16

Post by terminalshort »

imiric wrote: post #9
AlexandrB wrote: post #6

Same as it ever was. You see the same kind of thing is the food industry, pharmaceutical industry, tobacco industry, fossil fuel industry, etc. On the one hand it's almost inevitable. Who (outside of the government) is going to care enough about the results of stuff like this to fund it if not the industry affected? You also often need the industry's help if you're doing anything that involves large sample sizes or s…

The people in these industries are collectively responsible for millions of preventable deaths, and they, their families, and generations of their offspring are and will be living the best lives money can buy. And yet one person kills a CEO, and they're a terrorist.

Large and complex systems are fundamentally unpredictable and have tradeoffs and consequences that can't be foreseen by anybody. Error rates are never zero. So basically anything large enough is going to kill people in one way or another. There are intelligent ways to deal with this, and then there is shooting the CEO, which will change nothing because the next CEO faces the exact same set of choices and incentives as the last one.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#18

Post by CodingJeebus »

terminalshort wrote: post #11
Grimblewald wrote: post #7

From history we know that research left unchecked and unrestricted can start leading to some really dark and horrible things. Right now I think it's a problem that social media companies can do research without answering to the same regulatory bodies that regular academics / researchers would. For example, they don't have to answer to independant ethics committees / reviews. They're free to experiement as they like o…

What counts as research? If I make UI changes, I guess it's ok to roll it out to everyone, because that's not an experiment, but if I roll it out to 1%, then that's research? If I own two stores and decide to redecorate one and see if sales increase vs the other store, do I need government approval? Also I would like an example of something a social media company does that you wouldn't be able to get approval to do o…

> Also I would like an example of something a social media company does that you wouldn't be able to get approval to do on animals.

One possible example is the emotion manipulation study Facebook did over a decade ago[0]. I don't know how you would perform an experiment like this on animals, but Facebook has demonstrated a desire to understand all the different ways its platform can be used to alter user behavior and emotions.

0: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/06/30/32...

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#19

Post by BrenBarn »

terminalshort wrote: post #16
imiric wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people in these industries are collectively responsible for millions of preventable deaths, and they, their families, and generations of their offspring are and will be living the best lives money can buy. And yet one person kills a CEO, and they're a terrorist.

Large and complex systems are fundamentally unpredictable and have tradeoffs and consequences that can't be foreseen by anybody. Error rates are never zero. So basically anything large enough is going to kill people in one way or another. There are intelligent ways to deal with this, and then there is shooting the CEO, which will change nothing because the next CEO faces the exact same set of choices and incentives a…

Well, given what you said, one obvious mechanism is to cap the sizes of these organizations so that any errors are less impactful. Break up every single company into little pieces.
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