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Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

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Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#81

Post by polarix »

potatolicious wrote: post #26

I'm going to try and avoid the minefield that is this research vs. ethics. One thought I've had is that the blowback against this incident is less about the research itself and how ethical it is, and more about perception of Facebook in general. My suspicion is a lot of the opposition at this point comes from long-simmering distrust of Facebook and the increasingly negative perception of its brand - this incident is…

It's also, unfortunately, deeply harmful to humanity.

http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2014/06/28/in-defense-of-face...

> by far the most likely outcome of the backlash Facebook is currently experience is that, in future, its leadership will be less likely to allow its data scientists to publish their findings in the scientific literature

Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#82

Post by zaroth »

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #77
akerl_ wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Do customers prefer the green button or the blue button" is harmless. That is a psychological test.

Not one which is specifically designed to alter someone's emotional mental state. The difference is quite obvious, surely.

Actually, no. You are putting the cart before the horse. What actually happened is that they tweaked the ranking algorithm, and then measured a minuscule effect in a particular scoring algorithm (in this case counting certain types of words used in future posts).

So the nature of the scoring algorithm (counting emotional words) used to measure the impact of a change makes deploying the A/B test suddenly unethical?

Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#83

Post by zaroth »

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #69
onewaystreet wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much advertising could be said to negatively influence a person's mental state. These are not simple questions with simple answers.

Wholly different thing. Let's draw an analogy here. Let's say that Google decided to conduct an experiment on its Glass users, and that for a period of a week, Google decided to see if it could alter the mental state of its customers by using Glass to delete or diminish positive social interactions. Let's assume this research was conducted without any kind of consent or knowledge of the customers being experimented o…

Google Glass absolutely will have to carefully rank the content that is displayed on its interface. The algorithms for such ranking are surely ripe for R&D and competitive advantage, and as such, will be constantly evolving and being tested. If this Facebook test creeps you out, there is literally nothing about Google Glass which should NOT have you running for the exits.

Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#84

Post by zaroth »

naterator wrote: post #66
zaroth wrote: post #49

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?

> Do you understand how widespread this kind of research is? Literally everyone does this. One of the main objections I'm seeing from people (in my bubble) isn't that Facebook did this, but that Cornell, UCSF, and PNAS participated in this. Facebook can do this, and while it's unethical it's not illegal. Same goes for manipulative people in your everyday life (let me not tell you about the horrific human being of a g…

OK, this is interesting. I don't think this is people turning their nose up at it, just because [insert endowing authority here] is somehow seen to have endorsed it. Apparently someone actually did something wrong here...

If it's the case they should be held to a higher standard simply because it was academic research, it's seems like a terribly inconsistent position to take. But if true, then FB walked right into it, and all we can do is shrug.

Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#85

Post by sooheon »

baddox wrote: post #71
dublinben wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>advertising, marketing, etc. I have no problem claiming that this is usually unethical.

I strongly disagree, but fair enough, if you're consistent. I'm curious, what is your ethical reasoning behind that? Do you oppose markets, or just communication from producers to consumers in markets?

The active pursuit of more effective means of psychological manipulation seems to be the reason most people have a beef with marketing. Marketing is never about fully honest, fact based "communication from producers to consumers." Distortion, concealment, and need-creation is more marketing's forte. Marketers don't say: "this is our product, buy it if you need it." They say: "here is why you want to buy our product."

Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#86

Post by vacri »

naterator wrote: post #66
zaroth wrote: post #49

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?

> Do you understand how widespread this kind of research is? Literally everyone does this. One of the main objections I'm seeing from people (in my bubble) isn't that Facebook did this, but that Cornell, UCSF, and PNAS participated in this. Facebook can do this, and while it's unethical it's not illegal. Same goes for manipulative people in your everyday life (let me not tell you about the horrific human being of a g…

Ethics committees can and do give the all-clear to experiments that have a negative impact on people, as long as the experimental procedure is generally tight, anonymous, information is well-controlled with little scope for leakage or abuse, and with a potential for a result that is solid and informative enough to be worth the inconvenience or other negative impact.

Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#87

Post by vacri »

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #77
akerl_ wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Do customers prefer the green button or the blue button" is harmless. That is a psychological test.

Not one which is specifically designed to alter someone's emotional mental state. The difference is quite obvious, surely.

Most advertising is specifically designed to alter someone's emotional mental state, and plenty of that is in a negative direction. Would you also outlaw advertising? Why should advertising get a free pass and not well-controlled psych testing? What about signs warning you not to infringe on [random local law] under threat of penalty? They create a sense of oppression. Should they be forbidden?

Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#88

Post by vacri »

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #69
onewaystreet wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much advertising could be said to negatively influence a person's mental state. These are not simple questions with simple answers.

Wholly different thing. Let's draw an analogy here. Let's say that Google decided to conduct an experiment on its Glass users, and that for a period of a week, Google decided to see if it could alter the mental state of its customers by using Glass to delete or diminish positive social interactions. Let's assume this research was conducted without any kind of consent or knowledge of the customers being experimented o…

onewaystreet did not say advertising was harmless; rather, the opposite. It's interesting that you think advertising is harmless, not creepy, and not dangerous.

Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#89

Post by nl »

zaroth wrote: post #52
yazinsai wrote: post #20

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…

I'd normally be with you in defending Facebook here, but in this case the ethics really are questionable.

They designed an experiment where there was a serious hypothesis that it could lead to depression in the people subject to it. That has the potential to be actually harmful.

I still defend Facebook's right to do research, but they need to take more care to avoid harm.

The industry as a whole doesn't perform experiments designed to depress people. There could be other unethical experiments too, but they need to be judged on a case by case basis.

Re: Facebook emotion manipulation study: an explanation

#90

Post by chris_wot »

polarix wrote: post #76
jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it could be summed up as "Attempting to negatively influence a visitor's mental state without their knowledge or consent IS NOT COOL."

The assertion that this study refuted was that too much positive bias in a filtered source of information causes negative sentiment. Reducing said positive bias had heretofore unknown effects. The attempt was to learn, not to negatively influence anyone's mental state.

Just like the Milgram Experiment was designed to see whether a small number of people could be coerced into believing they are torturing and killing people when so ordered? It wasn't designed to cause mental distress, but to see what happened.

You see, that's why there are ethics committees at Universities.

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