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Facebook 'Permission' for 'Research' 4 months After Emotion Manipulation Study

9 points by 001sky 12y ago

a3n 12y ago
Facebook conducted psychological experiments on people, to see what would happen when they made people feel bad. Or to see if they could make people feel bad. Or to see what might make people feel bad. Not sure, doesn't matter. Facebook is OK with this because it's part of making them billions of dollars. It's not the fallback to their ToS that makes them OK with it, it's the dollars. The ends have always justified the means. Facebook did not have people's informed consent, whether their ToS said "Research" before, during or after the experiment, or ever, or always. I have never seen an informed consent form, but I am certain that it is not hundreds of page scrolls long, with a single word "research" buried in it to imply that you've accepted any and all future experiments, as one of many, many subjects focused on in the ToS. Informed consent, I'm quite sure, is the only subject of a legitimate informed consent form. When you read one, I'm quite sure that you know you're reading about informed consent and only informed consent, and it might reasonably take between ten and thirty minutes to get a more or less complete understanding of the complete document. No one understand a complete ToS a la Facebook and their ilk, except the lawyers who wrote it, and the lawyers who might sue in its context. The guy in Facebook who did this should be fired. You know that he knew people didn't know they'd given permission. The barest, molecule thin fig-leaf of an excuse is "well, ToS, and our lawyers said." ToS for psychological manipulation is the last, indefensible refuge of an evil, evil scoundrel. Of course he won't be fired, because he helped contribute to future billions of dollars for Facebook. The ends have always justified the means. Fuck you. The academics should be disciplined. They certainly understand informed consent, and its lack, and the ethical hell that they wallowed in. Fuck you. This is part and parcel with Facebook's long, slimy lurch through episode after episode of privacy violation and subsequent sociopathic denial. So now, the web's social networks are into psychological experiments on its users. Er, products. Er, subjects. What's next? The internet of things is coming, there are many rich troughs of slop to inhale involving physical manipulation. Let's see what happens when thermostats make things just slightly too hot, or too cold. Let's subtly vibrate their phones, to keep them on edge, and correlate that with angry posts, or interesting purchases. Let's see if we can get people to fight. Why? Who cares, it'll be fun, and we declare afterwards what we were trying to do when we see what people do. When it's all about the billions, anything is possible.

9 points by 001sky 12y ago

a3n 12y ago

Facebook conducted psychological experiments on people, to see what would happen when they made people feel bad. Or to see if they could make people feel bad. Or to see what might make people feel bad. Not sure, doesn't matter. Facebook is OK with this because it's part of making them billions of dollars. It's not the fallback to their ToS that makes them OK with it, it's the dollars. The ends have always justified the means. Facebook did not have people's informed consent, whether their ToS said "Research" before, during or after the experiment, or ever, or always. I have never seen an informed consent form, but I am certain that it is not hundreds of page scrolls long, with a single word "research" buried in it to imply that you've accepted any and all future experiments, as one of many, many subjects focused on in the ToS. Informed consent, I'm quite sure, is the only subject of a legitimate informed consent form. When you read one, I'm quite sure that you know you're reading about informed consent and only informed consent, and it might reasonably take between ten and thirty minutes to get a more or less complete understanding of the complete document. No one understand a complete ToS a la Facebook and their ilk, except the lawyers who wrote it, and the lawyers who might sue in its context. The guy in Facebook who did this should be fired. You know that he knew people didn't know they'd given permission. The barest, molecule thin fig-leaf of an excuse is "well, ToS, and our lawyers said." ToS for psychological manipulation is the last, indefensible refuge of an evil, evil scoundrel. Of course he won't be fired, because he helped contribute to future billions of dollars for Facebook. The ends have always justified the means. Fuck you. The academics should be disciplined. They certainly understand informed consent, and its lack, and the ethical hell that they wallowed in. Fuck you. This is part and parcel with Facebook's long, slimy lurch through episode after episode of privacy violation and subsequent sociopathic denial. So now, the web's social networks are into psychological experiments on its users. Er, products. Er, subjects. What's next? The internet of things is coming, there are many rich troughs of slop to inhale involving physical manipulation. Let's see what happens when thermostats make things just slightly too hot, or too cold. Let's subtly vibrate their phones, to keep them on edge, and correlate that with angry posts, or interesting purchases. Let's see if we can get people to fight. Why? Who cares, it'll be fun, and we declare afterwards what we were trying to do when we see what people do. When it's all about the billions, anything is possible.