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This is insanity. How did this study pass an ethics council? They admit to exposing people to negative emotional cues at random? Their N is 689K. At this point

This is insanity. How did this study pass an ethics council? They admit to exposing people to negative emotional cues at random? Their N is 689K. At this point, they are certainly responsible for some number of suicides. The authors should be ashamed of themselves. Their salary is being paid by manipulating people's emotions on purpose. Something is wrong with that.

dr_dshiv 6y ago
The issue is that they published it in a journal? Otherwise an ethics board isnt required for running an A/B test
- thaw13579 6y ago
  Seems like there are several concerns: the journal, a question of whether the FB usage agreement permitted such a report from being published, and generally whether it is ethical (separate from the review board question). Some more discussion: http://ulan.mede.uic.edu/alansz/2014/07/an-open-letter-to-pnas-about-their-publication-of-the-facebook-study/ http://ulan.mede.uic.edu/alansz/2014/07/an-open-letter-to-pn...
  - dr_dshiv 6y ago
    The ethical question is whether to do A/B tests privately vs to do A/B tests and publish scientific papers about them. I would be interested to understand the ethical basis for removing the ability of companies to run A/B tests.
    - thaw13579 6y ago
      And further, whether to do A/B tests or not, and whether the subject consents, since the test might have negative effect
      - dr_dshiv 6y ago
        How should a user consent to a Google A/B test other than agreeing to use the software that has A/B tests in it? They run 10s of thousands of tests every day
- sitkack 6y ago
  I think that the vast majority of A/B tests are unethical.
tpetricek 6y ago
There is a link to the answer right on the page under "Editorial Expression of Concern". This answers how it bypassed an ethics council: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/29/10779.1 https://www.pnas.org/content/111/29/10779.1
bearer_token 6y ago
It didn't. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/01/facebooks-emotional-manipulation-study-was-even-worse-than-you-thought/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/0...
asdgfinionio 6y ago
>They admit to exposing people to negative emotional cues at random? I'm not sure the "negative" part matters. Manipulating someone's information in any way is irresponsible. A message intended to be uplifting can be harmful, say if someone is in a manic state or is unable to relate to the positive message. In politics, I think we all know the dangers of burying bad news. Making people sad is more obviously evil than making people happy, but Facebook has no business trying to do either. >At this point, they are certainly responsible for some number of suicides. I doubt that. The effect size was small (~2% change in frequency of emotional words), and it seems dubious to me that the frequency of positive and negative words actually reflects someone's emotional state. But failure isn't an excuse. Trying to hurt people isn't OK just because you aren't very good at it.
- titzer 6y ago
  > Manipulating someone's information in any way is irresponsible. I agree. But what about advertising, filter bubbles, curated feeds, aggregators? Is it OK if done algorithmically to make more money?
chrisco255 6y ago
Sorry but you can't hold someone else responsible for suicide unless they were specifically taunting and influencing someone to commit that act.
- tathougies 6y ago
  But they were specifically taunting them and influencing them. They put up posts with negative emotions. If just one post caused someone to commit suicide in the negative study group, and facebook showed it to them one time more than normal, they are culpable. Given the large N value, I find it difficult to believe this didn't happen.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Negative emotions is already a significant chunk of social media in general and news media as well. So...very slippery slope definition for culpability you've got there.
    - tathougies 6y ago
      That's why social media feeds must use a dumb algorithm.
  - cma 6y ago
    "Normal" is already determined by their AB testing which is already massive scale human experimentation.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      I wonder at what point people will be able to say "It's not my fault, the Algorithm made me do it" and have that accepted as a valid excuse by a majority of society.
      - generativenoise 6y ago
        Isn't that just the generalisation of 'it is only business' which the majority of society already accepts as a valid excuse for some pretty unethical behaviour.
strogonoff 6y ago
Unless I am mistaken, this study reports on Facebook’s own test of News Feed algorithms. Facebook ran the test in 2012, supposedly to determine whether posts with emotional content are more engaging. This study (published in 2014, by the way—could someone edit the title?) appears to be examining the data from that test.
mennis16 6y ago
FWIW there was some backlash at the time: https://www.wsj.com/articles/furor-erupts-over-facebook-experiment-on-users-1404085840 https://www.wsj.com/articles/furor-erupts-over-facebook-expe...

dr_dshiv 6y ago

The issue is that they published it in a journal? Otherwise an ethics board isnt required for running an A/B test

thaw13579 6y ago
Seems like there are several concerns: the journal, a question of whether the FB usage agreement permitted such a report from being published, and generally whether it is ethical (separate from the review board question). Some more discussion: http://ulan.mede.uic.edu/alansz/2014/07/an-open-letter-to-pnas-about-their-publication-of-the-facebook-study/ http://ulan.mede.uic.edu/alansz/2014/07/an-open-letter-to-pn...
- dr_dshiv 6y ago
  The ethical question is whether to do A/B tests privately vs to do A/B tests and publish scientific papers about them. I would be interested to understand the ethical basis for removing the ability of companies to run A/B tests.
  - thaw13579 6y ago
    And further, whether to do A/B tests or not, and whether the subject consents, since the test might have negative effect
    - dr_dshiv 6y ago
      How should a user consent to a Google A/B test other than agreeing to use the software that has A/B tests in it? They run 10s of thousands of tests every day
sitkack 6y ago
I think that the vast majority of A/B tests are unethical.

tpetricek 6y ago

There is a link to the answer right on the page under "Editorial Expression of Concern". This answers how it bypassed an ethics council: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/29/10779.1 https://www.pnas.org/content/111/29/10779.1

bearer_token 6y ago

It didn't. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/01/facebooks-emotional-manipulation-study-was-even-worse-than-you-thought/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/0...

asdgfinionio 6y ago

>They admit to exposing people to negative emotional cues at random? I'm not sure the "negative" part matters. Manipulating someone's information in any way is irresponsible. A message intended to be uplifting can be harmful, say if someone is in a manic state or is unable to relate to the positive message. In politics, I think we all know the dangers of burying bad news. Making people sad is more obviously evil than making people happy, but Facebook has no business trying to do either. >At this point, they are certainly responsible for some number of suicides. I doubt that. The effect size was small (~2% change in frequency of emotional words), and it seems dubious to me that the frequency of positive and negative words actually reflects someone's emotional state. But failure isn't an excuse. Trying to hurt people isn't OK just because you aren't very good at it.

titzer 6y ago
> Manipulating someone's information in any way is irresponsible. I agree. But what about advertising, filter bubbles, curated feeds, aggregators? Is it OK if done algorithmically to make more money?

chrisco255 6y ago

Sorry but you can't hold someone else responsible for suicide unless they were specifically taunting and influencing someone to commit that act.

tathougies 6y ago
But they were specifically taunting them and influencing them. They put up posts with negative emotions. If just one post caused someone to commit suicide in the negative study group, and facebook showed it to them one time more than normal, they are culpable. Given the large N value, I find it difficult to believe this didn't happen.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Negative emotions is already a significant chunk of social media in general and news media as well. So...very slippery slope definition for culpability you've got there.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    That's why social media feeds must use a dumb algorithm.
- cma 6y ago
  "Normal" is already determined by their AB testing which is already massive scale human experimentation.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    I wonder at what point people will be able to say "It's not my fault, the Algorithm made me do it" and have that accepted as a valid excuse by a majority of society.
    - generativenoise 6y ago
      Isn't that just the generalisation of 'it is only business' which the majority of society already accepts as a valid excuse for some pretty unethical behaviour.

strogonoff 6y ago

Unless I am mistaken, this study reports on Facebook’s own test of News Feed algorithms. Facebook ran the test in 2012, supposedly to determine whether posts with emotional content are more engaging. This study (published in 2014, by the way—could someone edit the title?) appears to be examining the data from that test.

mennis16 6y ago

FWIW there was some backlash at the time: https://www.wsj.com/articles/furor-erupts-over-facebook-experiment-on-users-1404085840 https://www.wsj.com/articles/furor-erupts-over-facebook-expe...