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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not even just A/B testing. Any form of interaction which is intended to alter the mood or beliefs of any person, including visual design, advertising, marketing, etc.
>advertising, marketing, etc. I have no problem claiming that this is usually unethical.
This comment on the piece aptly sums up my response, it's by Sean Tucker: Adam, I don't know you -- I came here from the Buzzfeed article criticizing the ethics of the study that linked to this post, but it appears we do have a friend in common. I just have to ask - you honestly had a hypothesis that amounted to 'perhaps we can make people more depressed,' and decided to test it on a group that hadn't consented to th…
This is Facebook. Is has a tremendous effect on peoples lives. And that's precisely why it's worth $100B. This is nothing more than a tweak in their ranking algorithm -- much larger and even targeted/dynamic modifications occur all the time. How can a reasonable person be upset by this? If the study is unethical by any reasonable standard, does this amount to condemning the whole company, even the whole industry? Bec…
This comment on the piece aptly sums up my response, it's by Sean Tucker: Adam, I don't know you -- I came here from the Buzzfeed article criticizing the ethics of the study that linked to this post, but it appears we do have a friend in common. I just have to ask - you honestly had a hypothesis that amounted to 'perhaps we can make people more depressed,' and decided to test it on a group that hadn't consented to th…
This is Facebook. Is has a tremendous effect on peoples lives. And that's precisely why it's worth $100B. This is nothing more than a tweak in their ranking algorithm -- much larger and even targeted/dynamic modifications occur all the time. How can a reasonable person be upset by this? If the study is unethical by any reasonable standard, does this amount to condemning the whole company, even the whole industry? Bec…
Am I alone in being completely un-surprised and accepting of Facebook doing research in this way on its users? The News Feed as an interface for using FB is and has always been an evolving product and in the control of FB. They've been constantly messing with it, A/B testing different combinations of user/advertiser content and post/comment structure. They do this to test outcomes, and achieve goals that most likely…
You're not alone, but I think you do yourself a disservice by underestimating the potential negative impact of an experiment designed for the purpose of manipulating a customer's emotions . There's no defensible business objective here, and furthermore, any business objective that relies on this kind of emotional manipulation is suspect. Intentionally making a customer depressed is not something you fuck around with.…
So all modern day advertising then, that attempts to create a connection with the viewer/reader (as opposed to presenting bare facts).
I agree that there was a process problem from the point of view of a research study but had this just been an A/B test for engagement levels, we might never have known what Facebook did.
Wow, what an amazingly tone-deaf post. It demeans Facebook users who were offended at the company's actions into simpletons who did not really understand what the study was really about. Sample this: > Nobody's posts were "hidden," they just didn't show up on some loads of Feed. How is hiding any different from not showing up? > And at the end of the day, the actual impact on people in the experiment was the minimal…
It's easy to say that Facebook should apologize and implement an opt-in for research, but the problem is, what's the difference between a research experiment and an A/B test?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am really trying to understand both sides of this. Focusing on the actual research, what about it do you think requires informed consent? Do you understand how widespread this kind of research is? Literally everyone does this. The act of publishing can't be the ethical breach -- just focus on the research, what do you think they did wrong there?
Perhaps it could be summed up as "Attempting to negatively influence a visitor's mental state without their knowledge or consent IS NOT COOL."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of those are quite different things, and obviously so if you think about them. "Do customers prefer the green button or the blue button" is harmless. Psychological testing is NOT harmless and NOT something that anyone with a website can or should do. That is medical research - and as such is strictly controlled precisely because of the real risks and genuine human cost that it can have if conducted inexpertly.
> "Do customers prefer the green button or the blue button" is harmless. That is a psychological test.
"We're conducting a scientific study on mood for the next three months. Would you mind participating? The study won't require you to do anything special or take any further action. Y/N?"
There we go kids, easy as pie; it's called consent to participate! Pretty easy to do without spilling the beans on the study.
Not a single point in that response directly addresses why there was no informed consent in the study. There are reasons why research goes under ethical review before it is conducted, and this is certainly going to be a tough lesson for Facebook.
Experimenters have tell fibs in order to discover the truth about your behavior: the only way to prevent you from thinking of the word "elephant" is say the experiment is about cats. This is generally considered OK, provided that you won't be upset when you find out what was really going on. And, without the benefit of hindsight, it is hard to see why people would get upset about this experiment. I reckon Facebook us…
This comment on the piece aptly sums up my response, it's by Sean Tucker: Adam, I don't know you -- I came here from the Buzzfeed article criticizing the ethics of the study that linked to this post, but it appears we do have a friend in common. I just have to ask - you honestly had a hypothesis that amounted to 'perhaps we can make people more depressed,' and decided to test it on a group that hadn't consented to th…
This is Facebook. Is has a tremendous effect on peoples lives. And that's precisely why it's worth $100B. This is nothing more than a tweak in their ranking algorithm -- much larger and even targeted/dynamic modifications occur all the time. How can a reasonable person be upset by this? If the study is unethical by any reasonable standard, does this amount to condemning the whole company, even the whole industry? Bec…
$foodcompany recently mixed some small amounts of a known poison into their product to see how their customers would react. This is nothing more than a tweak in their recipe - much larger modifications occur all the time. How can a reasonable person be upset by this?