19 ms·

I guess you really don't like the advertisement and UX design industry, then! I mean, there is an endless stream of human experimentation... What should we do

• burkaman 5y ago
  Yes I strongly dislike the advertising industry. UX designers I don't have a problem with - they often use informed consent ("check out our new design!"), and as far as I know they don't usually run intentionally harmful experiments. I'm not sure how they could, Facebook is in a somewhat unique position there as it's so embedded in some people's lives. I'm not sure there's really a policy solution, I think any law that made what Facebook does illegal would also make a million other legitimate activities illegal. It's good that Facebook was shamed into apologizing and creating some kind of internal review board, society at large did a great job making that happen, and we should keep that up. Maybe journals can institute better policies about not publishing unethical studies so they don't legitimize and encourage this behavior. Note that it's not a choice between "Facebook does everything in secret" or "Facebook publishes all its research". Even if there had been no consequences for the emotional contagion study, Facebook would still keep most research internal, just like the tobacco industry buried cancer studies or the oil industry buried climate change research.
  • dr_dshiv 5y ago
    UX design uses a large number of a/b tests. By their nature, no a/b test involves consent.