6 ms·

v2 is zero bytes, but v1 works: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03098v1 https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03098v1 This preprint paper contains no indication of participati

v2 is zero bytes, but v1 works: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03098v1 https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03098v1 This preprint paper contains no indication of participation by an Ethical Review Board and lists 5 @linked.com email addresses as the sole authors. How is this study ethically responsible?

londons_explore 7y ago
What ethical concerns do you see?
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  They’re studying the long-term perceptual impact of advertising on test subjects who did not authorize being participants in this experiment. That goes far beyond “is our advertising effective?” and instead verges on “how does our advertising permanently affect human behavior?”. I don’t trust LinkedIn to act ethically in such a regard. Do you?
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Those questions are flip sides of the same coin. The problem is defining the boundaries. For example, does it count as an "experiment measuring human behaviour" to slowly roll out a new feature to see if engagement metrics change? What about A/B testing the colour of all the links on your page to see if they're clicked more?
  - fwn 7y ago
    Not the parent, but I did not yet get the ethical problem you described in your comment. Isn't "how does [decision architecture] permanently affect human behavior" the main starting point for all scientific evaluations of user interfaces? A supermarkets behavioral experiments revealing that people permanently shift their dietary habits towards goods placed in the middle of the aisle appears to me to be structurally equal. I never worried that I can't trust the supermarket in such a regard.
    - shakna 7y ago
      Any time you're studying how you might influence human behaviour, especially if they may be unaware that you are seeking to do so, you need to run it by an ethics board. This is something psychology has had issues with in the past, and so it's a sensitive area. Several nations also have laws governing these kinds of experiments as a result. The supermarket should be assessing whether their experiment is ethical. Increasing sales of fruit and veg is unlikely to raise any red flags, but if you drive people towards unhealthy options, then you may need to assess whether or not your study has the potential for detrimental long term effects.
      - fwn 7y ago
        Ah, I see. It's not an ethical, but a legal or procedural concern. That's fair enough. I didn't think about that.
        cf141q5325 7y ago
        No its an ethical concern. To the degree, that some countries have legal frameworks to make sure that unethical studies dont take place. Conducting a study on unknowing testsubjects which aims to influence the subject is an ethical question. Picture for example the nocebo effect, there are only limited studies on humans, as inducing these negative effects on unknowing subjects is extremely unethical. An ethics board has to, among other things, evaluate if your study will induce any negative effects in the participants. While negative effects can be accepted, its extremely unlikely for unknowing testsubjects which didnt give meaningful consent.
        fwn 7y ago
        I know talking ethics beyond buzzwords is a karma killer on HN, but I'm unteachable. I promise: no evil intentions. > [...] Conducting a study on unknowing testsubjects which aims to influence the subject is an ethical question. [...] As far as I understood it you are just restating what our parent already said with: > [...] How is this study ethically responsible? [...] They’re studying the long-term perceptual impact of advertising on test subjects who did not authorize being participants in this experiment. [...] It's not sufficient to state that there's an ethical argument to make the argument an ethical argument. This is important, because it's the only way to productively talk about ethical concerns at all - irrespective of how one feels regarding this particular issue. An argument based on ethics is usually founded in some set of value propositions. Often a case gets structured/applied along those propositions in the argument. > [...] Picture for example the nocebo effect, there are only limited studies on humans, as inducing these negative effects on unknowing subjects is extremely unethical. [...] That does appear to be the ethical standard case from clinical research. You've test subjects with a variation of intentions, knowledge and consent as well as (for the most part) clearly isolatable harm. One would first find the obvious ethical fault in intentionally inducing the risk of harming someone and subsequently start healing/weighting through something like consent, individual and humanitarian utility, etc. (That's roughly what you described as part of an ethics board workflow.) Now back to this case: How do we quantify harm induced by a change regarding LinkedIn ad-density? It's not clear to me that there is any risk for induced harm even if all (100%) posts visible on LinkedIn were ads. Next question would be consent, but since I wanted to start with the strongest argument first, I'll stick with the harm. This is why I would like to know how the ethical argument against this study works.
  - nerdponx 7y ago
    Unfortunately that ship has long since sailed. Every company is A/B testing everything on every user.
    - inetknght 7y ago
      > Unfortunately that ship has long since sailed. Every company is A/B testing everything on every user. It's only sailed if you give up and give in. Policies can change.
  - nabla9 7y ago
    Are you sure? https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement >When you use our Services you agree to all of these terms. Your use of our Services is also subject to our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy, which covers how we collect, use, share, and store your personal information. https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy >We use the personal data available to us to research social, economic and workplace trends such as jobs availability and skills needed for these jobs and policies that help bridge the gap in various industries and geographic areas. In some cases, we work with trusted third parties to perform this research, under controls that are designed to protect your privacy. We publish or allow others to publish economic insights, presented as aggregated data rather than personal data.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      "But it's technically legal!" is not a valid argument in a discussion about ethical concerns.
      - fwn 7y ago
        Applying the principle of charity our parent quoted their terms to demonstrate consent, not legal trickery. The criticism against this argument would be that those terms aren't sufficient to provide consent as people habitually ignore them. Not sure what would count as the morally appropriate implementation of consent. Probably some middle-ground between buried in terms and continuously re-emerging full screen blocking warning labels. The easy way out is probably found in some of the legal implementations of sufficiently informed consent.
    - jhayward 7y ago
      The language in the comment above does not in any way fulfill the obligations of informed consent as defined by most institutional research boards for human subjects.
sneeze-slayer 7y ago
Thanks for the link. I think these sorts of behind-the-scenes modifications happen quite frequently with social media feeds. Perhaps its not ethical, but at least we see some evidence of it happening.
nl 7y ago
This kind of study is exactly what advertising companies do all the time. I prefer to see the study than not.
grier 7y ago
In the US, an ERB is only required for federally funded research or (much more rarely) by specific publication venues.
Ilverin 7y ago
IRBs are not legally required, and most IRBs are excessively risk-averse (an IRB doesn't lose anything for denying a study, but a study with a bad outcome can give those on the IRB a bad reputation). Suppose you are ethically allowed to do A (show ads), and are ethically allowed to do B (not show ads). Then you are ethically allowed to run an experiment in which the only thing you do is A or B. You can definitely argue that showing ads (or certain ads) is ethically bad. You can also argue that there should be legal requirements for ethics reviews on all research (which is not currently the law).

londons_explore 7y ago

What ethical concerns do you see?

floatingatoll 7y ago
They’re studying the long-term perceptual impact of advertising on test subjects who did not authorize being participants in this experiment. That goes far beyond “is our advertising effective?” and instead verges on “how does our advertising permanently affect human behavior?”. I don’t trust LinkedIn to act ethically in such a regard. Do you?
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Those questions are flip sides of the same coin. The problem is defining the boundaries. For example, does it count as an "experiment measuring human behaviour" to slowly roll out a new feature to see if engagement metrics change? What about A/B testing the colour of all the links on your page to see if they're clicked more?
- fwn 7y ago
  Not the parent, but I did not yet get the ethical problem you described in your comment. Isn't "how does [decision architecture] permanently affect human behavior" the main starting point for all scientific evaluations of user interfaces? A supermarkets behavioral experiments revealing that people permanently shift their dietary habits towards goods placed in the middle of the aisle appears to me to be structurally equal. I never worried that I can't trust the supermarket in such a regard.
  - shakna 7y ago
    Any time you're studying how you might influence human behaviour, especially if they may be unaware that you are seeking to do so, you need to run it by an ethics board. This is something psychology has had issues with in the past, and so it's a sensitive area. Several nations also have laws governing these kinds of experiments as a result. The supermarket should be assessing whether their experiment is ethical. Increasing sales of fruit and veg is unlikely to raise any red flags, but if you drive people towards unhealthy options, then you may need to assess whether or not your study has the potential for detrimental long term effects.
    - fwn 7y ago
      Ah, I see. It's not an ethical, but a legal or procedural concern. That's fair enough. I didn't think about that.
      - cf141q5325 7y ago
        No its an ethical concern. To the degree, that some countries have legal frameworks to make sure that unethical studies dont take place. Conducting a study on unknowing testsubjects which aims to influence the subject is an ethical question. Picture for example the nocebo effect, there are only limited studies on humans, as inducing these negative effects on unknowing subjects is extremely unethical. An ethics board has to, among other things, evaluate if your study will induce any negative effects in the participants. While negative effects can be accepted, its extremely unlikely for unknowing testsubjects which didnt give meaningful consent.
        fwn 7y ago
        I know talking ethics beyond buzzwords is a karma killer on HN, but I'm unteachable. I promise: no evil intentions. > [...] Conducting a study on unknowing testsubjects which aims to influence the subject is an ethical question. [...] As far as I understood it you are just restating what our parent already said with: > [...] How is this study ethically responsible? [...] They’re studying the long-term perceptual impact of advertising on test subjects who did not authorize being participants in this experiment. [...] It's not sufficient to state that there's an ethical argument to make the argument an ethical argument. This is important, because it's the only way to productively talk about ethical concerns at all - irrespective of how one feels regarding this particular issue. An argument based on ethics is usually founded in some set of value propositions. Often a case gets structured/applied along those propositions in the argument. > [...] Picture for example the nocebo effect, there are only limited studies on humans, as inducing these negative effects on unknowing subjects is extremely unethical. [...] That does appear to be the ethical standard case from clinical research. You've test subjects with a variation of intentions, knowledge and consent as well as (for the most part) clearly isolatable harm. One would first find the obvious ethical fault in intentionally inducing the risk of harming someone and subsequently start healing/weighting through something like consent, individual and humanitarian utility, etc. (That's roughly what you described as part of an ethics board workflow.) Now back to this case: How do we quantify harm induced by a change regarding LinkedIn ad-density? It's not clear to me that there is any risk for induced harm even if all (100%) posts visible on LinkedIn were ads. Next question would be consent, but since I wanted to start with the strongest argument first, I'll stick with the harm. This is why I would like to know how the ethical argument against this study works.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  Unfortunately that ship has long since sailed. Every company is A/B testing everything on every user.
  - inetknght 7y ago
    > Unfortunately that ship has long since sailed. Every company is A/B testing everything on every user. It's only sailed if you give up and give in. Policies can change.
- nabla9 7y ago
  Are you sure? https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement >When you use our Services you agree to all of these terms. Your use of our Services is also subject to our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy, which covers how we collect, use, share, and store your personal information. https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy >We use the personal data available to us to research social, economic and workplace trends such as jobs availability and skills needed for these jobs and policies that help bridge the gap in various industries and geographic areas. In some cases, we work with trusted third parties to perform this research, under controls that are designed to protect your privacy. We publish or allow others to publish economic insights, presented as aggregated data rather than personal data.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    "But it's technically legal!" is not a valid argument in a discussion about ethical concerns.
    - fwn 7y ago
      Applying the principle of charity our parent quoted their terms to demonstrate consent, not legal trickery. The criticism against this argument would be that those terms aren't sufficient to provide consent as people habitually ignore them. Not sure what would count as the morally appropriate implementation of consent. Probably some middle-ground between buried in terms and continuously re-emerging full screen blocking warning labels. The easy way out is probably found in some of the legal implementations of sufficiently informed consent.
  - jhayward 7y ago
    The language in the comment above does not in any way fulfill the obligations of informed consent as defined by most institutional research boards for human subjects.

sneeze-slayer 7y ago

Thanks for the link. I think these sorts of behind-the-scenes modifications happen quite frequently with social media feeds. Perhaps its not ethical, but at least we see some evidence of it happening.

nl 7y ago

This kind of study is exactly what advertising companies do all the time. I prefer to see the study than not.

grier 7y ago

In the US, an ERB is only required for federally funded research or (much more rarely) by specific publication venues.

Ilverin 7y ago

IRBs are not legally required, and most IRBs are excessively risk-averse (an IRB doesn't lose anything for denying a study, but a study with a bad outcome can give those on the IRB a bad reputation). Suppose you are ethically allowed to do A (show ads), and are ethically allowed to do B (not show ads). Then you are ethically allowed to run an experiment in which the only thing you do is A or B. You can definitely argue that showing ads (or certain ads) is ethically bad. You can also argue that there should be legal requirements for ethics reviews on all research (which is not currently the law).