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

theguardian.com

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

#101

Post by seattledev »

graeme wrote: post #63
thatcat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the definition of an unethical experiment design and would be considered academic misconduct if that were academic work. Regardless of intent, fb probably shouldn't be allowing front end devs to design psychological experiments at mass scale. https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Experimental_ethics

Doesn’t that suggest professional ethics are immoral? They block a temporary, one off experiment which could suggest how to avoid sadness. The alternative is relying on intuition only and possibly making people permanently sadder. Or is there a way to achieve this knowledge consistent with the field of research ethics? We saw this with challenge trials in the pandemic where ethicists fretted people would reject them…

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.

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

#102

Post by seattledev »

plaidfuji wrote: post #54
thatcat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the definition of an unethical experiment design and would be considered academic misconduct if that were academic work. Regardless of intent, fb probably shouldn't be allowing front end devs to design psychological experiments at mass scale. https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Experimental_ethics

To be fair, the article states that the study was designed by a data scientist. Not that that implies that any additional ethical considerations were taken into account.

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

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

#104

Post by xg15 »

> But the issue of consent also doesn't quite explain why we're comfortable with some types of uninformed research on us, but not others. Like almost every major tech firm, Facebook practices A/B testing

Are "we" actually comfortable with that practice? (And who is "we" in the first place? The general public? Tech people? Journalists?)

It seems to me, this is simply something the industry does because it can get away with it - and most users don't object because they don't even know it's happening.

Why tech journalists see the Facebook thing as objectionable but A/B tests without consent as perfectly fine might be a question worth discussing.

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

#105

Post by xg15 »

mgraczyk wrote: post #76
thatcat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the definition of an unethical experiment design and would be considered academic misconduct if that were academic work. Regardless of intent, fb probably shouldn't be allowing front end devs to design psychological experiments at mass scale. https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Experimental_ethics

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 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.

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

#107

Post by xg15 »

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.

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

#108

Post by xg15 »

neonological wrote: post #26
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.

No it's not a crime against humanity, let's not go that far and let's not unreasonably promote cancel culture by burning the witch at the stake before giving the issue some deep thought. It's a much more complicated issue then you describe. Many corporate organizations have been selectively distributing information to deliberately influence sentiment for decades. Facebook is not the first nor will they be the last. R…

Ok, so clandestine manipulation is freedom of speech. Is that what the founding fathers intended?

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

#109

Post by xg15 »

wruza wrote: post #96

Honestly that sounds like “this stuff dealer is bad because they make people sad while they wait for a dose; I quit, clean for 2d 6h 19min”. No doubt facebook is evil, corporate monster, etc, but hey what about stopping being a junkie. The problem is not someone experimenting with your unhealthy addiction, it is your unhealthy addiction. At the early stages of the internet, most of the content was hidden, waiting for…

> The problem is not someone experimenting with your unhealthy addiction, it is your unhealthy addiction.

Why is it my unhealthy addiction if a multi-billion dollar company uses all tools at their disposal to push me into said addiction?

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

#110

Post by ARehmat »

seattledev wrote: post #101
graeme wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t that suggest professional ethics are immoral? They block a temporary, one off experiment which could suggest how to avoid sadness. The alternative is relying on intuition only and possibly making people permanently sadder. Or is there a way to achieve this knowledge consistent with the field of research ethics? We saw this with challenge trials in the pandemic where ethicists fretted people would reject them…

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.
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