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It's an interesting question. I have the same averse reaction to this story that a lot of people here have, but I admit I also thought, "If Facebook hadn't publ

It's an interesting question. I have the same averse reaction to this story that a lot of people here have, but I admit I also thought, "If Facebook hadn't published this as research, but just had it as a business decision to drive more usage or positive associations with the website, no one would care." My own way to reconcile this -- and I admit it's not a mainstream view -- is that advertisement and salesmanship should be considered just as unethical. I don't know how to quantify what "over the line" is, but it all feels like brain-hacking. Things like "The Century of the Self" suggest that in the past century or so we've become extremely good at finding the little tricks and failings of human cognition and taking advantage of vulnerabilities of our reasoning to inject the equivalent of malicious code. The problem is that when I say "we" I don't mean the average person, and there's an every-growing asymmetry. Like malware developers adapting faster than anti-malware developers, most people have the same level of defense that they always have had, while the "attackers" have gotten better and better at breaking through defenses. Sometimes I'll see discussions about "what will people centuries from now think was crazy about our era?" and there's a part of me that keeps coming back to the idea that the act of asymmetrically exploiting the faults of human thinking is considered normal and "just the way things are."

TeMPOraL 12y ago
> My own way to reconcile this -- and I admit it's not a mainstream view -- is that advertisement and salesmanship should be considered just as unethical. I agree with that, or probably think even more strongly - that advertisements/sales are more unethical than research. It's difficult to put limits though, because even if many salesmen clearly act maliciously, pretty much everything you do or say influences people this way or another; it's how we communicate. What I'd love to see is Facebook creating an opt-in option for an user to be a part of further sociological research. I'd gladly turn it on and be happy that I'm helping humanity, while Facebook could limit their studies to people who explicitly consented (there's an issue with selection bias though). They have too good data to be not used for the betterment of mankind.
- DanAndersen 12y ago
  Good point. I guess my concern -- recognizing this makes me sound like a Luddite or someone going on about "humans were never meant to know about this" -- is that the results of research like this aren't going to be used for the betterment of mankind. Rather, it'll be all about how to use a new mental vulnerability to get more eyeballs on someone's content or to increase the dopamine hits from browsing the site. What I would love -- and what I would eagerly opt-in to -- would be a system where Facebook could educate users on irrational behaviors. "We noticed that 60% of users like you spent an average of 30 seconds more looking at this kind of content... this is because your brain etc etc etc". Creepy, perhaps, but if there were a way to help people be more aware of and defend against advertisement that would be neat.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > Rather, it'll be all about how to use a new mental vulnerability to get more eyeballs on someone's content or to increase the dopamine hits from browsing the site. Sadly, you've made a great point here. It's very likely that the end results of research will be used exactly for that - as it already happens with most of psychology. I hope though that some of that research will be used to create better policies and help the society. > What I would love -- and what I would eagerly opt-in to -- would be a system where Facebook could educate users on irrational behaviors. I'd happily opt-in to that as well (and opt-in all my relatives too ;)). I don't expect Facebook to ever do that, as it'd exactly opposite to their goal to be able to a/ influence their users, and b/ cater for advertisers, but there already are websites doing exactly that (e.g. LessWrong). They're niche places though; I'd love to see something popular enough to reach general audience.
greggman 12y ago
I don't agree no one would care. It seems like you're basically saying no one cares if you don't get caught. That's true for anything from murder to theft to NSA spying. As for advertising trying to manipulate you you know it's an ad and there seem to be regulations for making that clear. For example things that look like articles in magazines but are actually ads are marked as "Special Advertising Section". Similarly ads for political candidates have to be marked "Paid for by XYZ". etc. We don't tolerate deception in those areas why would we tolerate it from FB?
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > For example things that look like articles in magazines but are actually ads are marked as "Special Advertising Section". Sadly, we've learned how to work around all of that; it's now called the PR industry. There's no way to spot a good PR campaign until after the fact because no single "fake organic news", no single article that happened to be published at a particular time can be pointed to and said "hey, that's an ad!". Bump up the scale and people will stop noticing.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

> My own way to reconcile this -- and I admit it's not a mainstream view -- is that advertisement and salesmanship should be considered just as unethical. I agree with that, or probably think even more strongly - that advertisements/sales are more unethical than research. It's difficult to put limits though, because even if many salesmen clearly act maliciously, pretty much everything you do or say influences people this way or another; it's how we communicate. What I'd love to see is Facebook creating an opt-in option for an user to be a part of further sociological research. I'd gladly turn it on and be happy that I'm helping humanity, while Facebook could limit their studies to people who explicitly consented (there's an issue with selection bias though). They have too good data to be not used for the betterment of mankind.

DanAndersen 12y ago
Good point. I guess my concern -- recognizing this makes me sound like a Luddite or someone going on about "humans were never meant to know about this" -- is that the results of research like this aren't going to be used for the betterment of mankind. Rather, it'll be all about how to use a new mental vulnerability to get more eyeballs on someone's content or to increase the dopamine hits from browsing the site. What I would love -- and what I would eagerly opt-in to -- would be a system where Facebook could educate users on irrational behaviors. "We noticed that 60% of users like you spent an average of 30 seconds more looking at this kind of content... this is because your brain etc etc etc". Creepy, perhaps, but if there were a way to help people be more aware of and defend against advertisement that would be neat.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > Rather, it'll be all about how to use a new mental vulnerability to get more eyeballs on someone's content or to increase the dopamine hits from browsing the site. Sadly, you've made a great point here. It's very likely that the end results of research will be used exactly for that - as it already happens with most of psychology. I hope though that some of that research will be used to create better policies and help the society. > What I would love -- and what I would eagerly opt-in to -- would be a system where Facebook could educate users on irrational behaviors. I'd happily opt-in to that as well (and opt-in all my relatives too ;)). I don't expect Facebook to ever do that, as it'd exactly opposite to their goal to be able to a/ influence their users, and b/ cater for advertisers, but there already are websites doing exactly that (e.g. LessWrong). They're niche places though; I'd love to see something popular enough to reach general audience.

greggman 12y ago

I don't agree no one would care. It seems like you're basically saying no one cares if you don't get caught. That's true for anything from murder to theft to NSA spying. As for advertising trying to manipulate you you know it's an ad and there seem to be regulations for making that clear. For example things that look like articles in magazines but are actually ads are marked as "Special Advertising Section". Similarly ads for political candidates have to be marked "Paid for by XYZ". etc. We don't tolerate deception in those areas why would we tolerate it from FB?

TeMPOraL 12y ago
> For example things that look like articles in magazines but are actually ads are marked as "Special Advertising Section". Sadly, we've learned how to work around all of that; it's now called the PR industry. There's no way to spot a good PR campaign until after the fact because no single "fake organic news", no single article that happened to be published at a particular time can be pointed to and said "hey, that's an ad!". Bump up the scale and people will stop noticing.