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Perhaps it could be summed up as "Attempting to negatively influence a visitor's mental state without their knowledge or consent IS NOT COOL."

onewaystreet 12y ago
So much advertising could be said to negatively influence a person's mental state. These are not simple questions with simple answers.
- jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
  Wholly different thing. Let's draw an analogy here. Let's say that Google decided to conduct an experiment on its Glass users, and that for a period of a week, Google decided to see if it could alter the mental state of its customers by using Glass to delete or diminish positive social interactions. Let's assume this research was conducted without any kind of consent or knowledge of the customers being experimented on. What's your immediate reaction to that? Still cool? Still harmless and just like advertising and A/B testing? Or, creepy and dangerous? Like it or not, Facebook does have a special responsibility here. It is, quite literally, the lens through which people see their world.
  - zaroth 12y ago
    Google Glass absolutely will have to carefully rank the content that is displayed on its interface. The algorithms for such ranking are surely ripe for R&D and competitive advantage, and as such, will be constantly evolving and being tested. If this Facebook test creeps you out, there is literally nothing about Google Glass which should NOT have you running for the exits.
  - vacri 12y ago
    onewaystreet did not say advertising was harmless; rather, the opposite. It's interesting that you think advertising is harmless, not creepy, and not dangerous.
zaroth 12y ago
Would it be OK to just try to positively influence a visitor's mental state? What about negatively influencing your opinion about something? What about making you feel scared a particular event might happen to you? What about making you feel like you need a pick-me-up? ...What about enticing the maximum number of people to click on your buttons for the maximum amount of time, with no purpose but capturing their eyeballs?
- jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
  Most of those are quite different things, and obviously so if you think about them. "Do customers prefer the green button or the blue button" is harmless. Psychological testing is NOT harmless and NOT something that anyone with a website can or should do. That is medical research - and as such is strictly controlled precisely because of the real risks and genuine human cost that it can have if conducted inexpertly.
  - akerl_ 12y ago
    > "Do customers prefer the green button or the blue button" is harmless. That is a psychological test.
    - jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
      Not one which is specifically designed to alter someone's emotional mental state. The difference is quite obvious, surely.
      - zaroth 12y ago
        Actually, no. You are putting the cart before the horse. What actually happened is that they tweaked the ranking algorithm, and then measured a minuscule effect in a particular scoring algorithm (in this case counting certain types of words used in future posts). So the nature of the scoring algorithm (counting emotional words) used to measure the impact of a change makes deploying the A/B test suddenly unethical?
      - 12y ago
polarix 12y ago
The assertion that this study refuted was that too much positive bias in a filtered source of information causes negative sentiment. Reducing said positive bias had heretofore unknown effects. The attempt was to learn, not to negatively influence anyone's mental state.
- chris_wot 12y ago
  Just like the Milgram Experiment was designed to see whether a small number of people could be coerced into believing they are torturing and killing people when so ordered? It wasn't designed to cause mental distress, but to see what happened. You see, that's why there are ethics committees at Universities.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
garethadams 12y ago
Has someone told Fox News?

onewaystreet 12y ago

So much advertising could be said to negatively influence a person's mental state. These are not simple questions with simple answers.

jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
Wholly different thing. Let's draw an analogy here. Let's say that Google decided to conduct an experiment on its Glass users, and that for a period of a week, Google decided to see if it could alter the mental state of its customers by using Glass to delete or diminish positive social interactions. Let's assume this research was conducted without any kind of consent or knowledge of the customers being experimented on. What's your immediate reaction to that? Still cool? Still harmless and just like advertising and A/B testing? Or, creepy and dangerous? Like it or not, Facebook does have a special responsibility here. It is, quite literally, the lens through which people see their world.
- zaroth 12y ago
  Google Glass absolutely will have to carefully rank the content that is displayed on its interface. The algorithms for such ranking are surely ripe for R&D and competitive advantage, and as such, will be constantly evolving and being tested. If this Facebook test creeps you out, there is literally nothing about Google Glass which should NOT have you running for the exits.
- vacri 12y ago
  onewaystreet did not say advertising was harmless; rather, the opposite. It's interesting that you think advertising is harmless, not creepy, and not dangerous.

zaroth 12y ago

Would it be OK to just try to positively influence a visitor's mental state? What about negatively influencing your opinion about something? What about making you feel scared a particular event might happen to you? What about making you feel like you need a pick-me-up? ...What about enticing the maximum number of people to click on your buttons for the maximum amount of time, with no purpose but capturing their eyeballs?

jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
Most of those are quite different things, and obviously so if you think about them. "Do customers prefer the green button or the blue button" is harmless. Psychological testing is NOT harmless and NOT something that anyone with a website can or should do. That is medical research - and as such is strictly controlled precisely because of the real risks and genuine human cost that it can have if conducted inexpertly.
- akerl_ 12y ago
  > "Do customers prefer the green button or the blue button" is harmless. That is a psychological test.
  - jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
    Not one which is specifically designed to alter someone's emotional mental state. The difference is quite obvious, surely.
    - zaroth 12y ago
      Actually, no. You are putting the cart before the horse. What actually happened is that they tweaked the ranking algorithm, and then measured a minuscule effect in a particular scoring algorithm (in this case counting certain types of words used in future posts). So the nature of the scoring algorithm (counting emotional words) used to measure the impact of a change makes deploying the A/B test suddenly unethical?
    - 12y ago

polarix 12y ago

The assertion that this study refuted was that too much positive bias in a filtered source of information causes negative sentiment. Reducing said positive bias had heretofore unknown effects. The attempt was to learn, not to negatively influence anyone's mental state.

chris_wot 12y ago
Just like the Milgram Experiment was designed to see whether a small number of people could be coerced into believing they are torturing and killing people when so ordered? It wasn't designed to cause mental distress, but to see what happened. You see, that's why there are ethics committees at Universities.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

garethadams 12y ago

Has someone told Fox News?