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Serious question: why should academic institutions be held to a higher standard than commercial ones? Google and Facebook, to just name two, routinely perform h

by User23 5y ago

Serious question: why should academic institutions be held to a higher standard than commercial ones? Google and Facebook, to just name two, routinely perform human subject research without informed consent as a matter of course. That's what A/B testing is. Ethically speaking the fine print in the ToS obviously isn't actually informed consent, even if the law says it is. I don't see why being a for-profit company should somehow lower the ethical bar.

kstrauser 5y ago
You're asking this backward: why should commercial institutions be held to a lower bar than academic ones. The response isn't to make it easier for universities to conduct research on you, but to make it harder for companies to.
- jldugger 5y ago
  I routinely launch canaries before deploying new code to production. Given there is no intent to deceive, mislead, or otherwise harm customers, and all internal testing has yielded a 'ship it' signal, is there any ethical need for users to opt-in to these A/B tests? In my view, the alternative is to ship something we _don't_ have data on and hope for the best. And if we demand informed consent, I have to assume it goes into boilerplate agreements nobody reads at signup, which is a mockery of the term 'informed' IMO.
numpad0 5y ago
I thought similar - it's such a routine and basic task to set up and run A/B testing to measure and optimize websites and apps for preferred conscious or subconscious response to visual stimuli. If this is a human subject research and human subject research without consent is a crime against humanity, most if not any proper web developer and the whole Web industry collectively are technically guilty of such a mouthful and abstract crime, which by the way I think they are.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jimmar 5y ago
Researchers in the past were pushing experiments too far. Infecting people with diseases without consent, torturing people psychologically, providing no post-experiment care, etc. I do research on human subjects, and while I often complain about the paperwork, I'm glad that researchers have to carefully consider the potential harm and benefits that research participants can face. But as far as other manipulations done by corporations? It's hard to say when something should require permission. Technically, a used car salesman is doing some kind of experiment when trying different sales tactics on people. But, I wouldn't make him fill out an IRB application. The same could be said of charities asking for donations who tug at your heart strings, or just about any other human interaction.
hannasanarion 5y ago
The ethical bar isn't "never do human testing on anybody ever". If an A/B test is likely to cause people harm (the 2012 Facebook Depression Experiment comes to mind), then it should absolutely be held to the same IRB standard as academia. The point of IRB is to ensure that your human testing doesn't cause anybody any material or psychological harm. "Human testing" isn't a bad word, it's just something that needs to be done with care.
fallingknife 5y ago
How is that even remotely similar? FB ran an a/b test. These guys sent bogus legal threats.
nikitaga 5y ago
Anyone can behave like an evil profit-seeking private corporation, but some organizations deliberately choose not to do that, and enjoy the resulting respect, recognition, tax benefits, and public funding that comes with it. Also, A/B testing only happens to people who choose to interact with the corporation for a related purpose. On the other hand, when corporations go out of line, e.g. scan your address book and send invites to your friends pretending to be you, they are also demonized for that. Imagine if Facebook sent you anonymous legal threats, you think they'd get a pass?
PeterisP 5y ago
IMHO this is not the proper frame of question for this case - it's not about whether academic institutions should be held to this standard, but rather that they have publicly committed to doing so and have made it a binding requirement on their researchers, and in this case have violated this commitment. A different aspect (not sure if it's relevant in this particular case) is that certain sources of research funding will impose certain ethical requirements, including specific process for human subject research - and that would apply also to for-profit companies if they would receive such funding for some project; and of course, the owners/shareholders of for-profit companies are also free to impose a higher ethical bar for e.g. A/B testing in their company, just as shareholders/owners currently are imposing various other ethical and social goals for their management and company policies. But for the actual question of "why should academic institutions be held to a higher standard than commercial ones?" IMHO a good answer is "why not?" - I mean, if they do not object to having this higher ethical bar (and these institutions generally do not), that's entirely a good thing.

by User23 5y ago

kstrauser 5y ago

You're asking this backward: why should commercial institutions be held to a lower bar than academic ones. The response isn't to make it easier for universities to conduct research on you, but to make it harder for companies to.

jldugger 5y ago
I routinely launch canaries before deploying new code to production. Given there is no intent to deceive, mislead, or otherwise harm customers, and all internal testing has yielded a 'ship it' signal, is there any ethical need for users to opt-in to these A/B tests? In my view, the alternative is to ship something we _don't_ have data on and hope for the best. And if we demand informed consent, I have to assume it goes into boilerplate agreements nobody reads at signup, which is a mockery of the term 'informed' IMO.

numpad0 5y ago

I thought similar - it's such a routine and basic task to set up and run A/B testing to measure and optimize websites and apps for preferred conscious or subconscious response to visual stimuli. If this is a human subject research and human subject research without consent is a crime against humanity, most if not any proper web developer and the whole Web industry collectively are technically guilty of such a mouthful and abstract crime, which by the way I think they are.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jimmar 5y ago

Researchers in the past were pushing experiments too far. Infecting people with diseases without consent, torturing people psychologically, providing no post-experiment care, etc. I do research on human subjects, and while I often complain about the paperwork, I'm glad that researchers have to carefully consider the potential harm and benefits that research participants can face. But as far as other manipulations done by corporations? It's hard to say when something should require permission. Technically, a used car salesman is doing some kind of experiment when trying different sales tactics on people. But, I wouldn't make him fill out an IRB application. The same could be said of charities asking for donations who tug at your heart strings, or just about any other human interaction.

hannasanarion 5y ago

The ethical bar isn't "never do human testing on anybody ever". If an A/B test is likely to cause people harm (the 2012 Facebook Depression Experiment comes to mind), then it should absolutely be held to the same IRB standard as academia. The point of IRB is to ensure that your human testing doesn't cause anybody any material or psychological harm. "Human testing" isn't a bad word, it's just something that needs to be done with care.

fallingknife 5y ago

How is that even remotely similar? FB ran an a/b test. These guys sent bogus legal threats.

nikitaga 5y ago

Anyone can behave like an evil profit-seeking private corporation, but some organizations deliberately choose not to do that, and enjoy the resulting respect, recognition, tax benefits, and public funding that comes with it. Also, A/B testing only happens to people who choose to interact with the corporation for a related purpose. On the other hand, when corporations go out of line, e.g. scan your address book and send invites to your friends pretending to be you, they are also demonized for that. Imagine if Facebook sent you anonymous legal threats, you think they'd get a pass?

PeterisP 5y ago

IMHO this is not the proper frame of question for this case - it's not about whether academic institutions should be held to this standard, but rather that they have publicly committed to doing so and have made it a binding requirement on their researchers, and in this case have violated this commitment. A different aspect (not sure if it's relevant in this particular case) is that certain sources of research funding will impose certain ethical requirements, including specific process for human subject research - and that would apply also to for-profit companies if they would receive such funding for some project; and of course, the owners/shareholders of for-profit companies are also free to impose a higher ethical bar for e.g. A/B testing in their company, just as shareholders/owners currently are imposing various other ethical and social goals for their management and company policies. But for the actual question of "why should academic institutions be held to a higher standard than commercial ones?" IMHO a good answer is "why not?" - I mean, if they do not object to having this higher ethical bar (and these institutions generally do not), that's entirely a good thing.