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Eh, so someone made up a bunch of rules and stamped "ethics!" on them, and now, completely independent of the original justification, it's somehow the law of th

Eh, so someone made up a bunch of rules and stamped "ethics!" on them, and now, completely independent of the original justification, it's somehow the law of the land. But, at least as applied here, it's pretty bogus. Think of this way: there's some sort of algorithm that controls what goes on your Facebook feed. There has to be, basically, or else they just have to show you everything. The algorithm takes in sentiment analysis as part of making those decisions, which seems perfectly reasonable. So far, just by building something that interacts with users and affects their emotions, FB has a completely uncontrolled experiment. If they show negative stories vs positive stories, what happens? So far, they just don't know, which seems really bad. Well, to find out the consequences of what they actually do, they have to dial up and down some knobs and see the effects. If they can't try things and find out what happens, how do you expect them to do anything? Just guess? Even worse, if they just guess, they're still experimenting, but now with way less information. This is completely normal, and every business does it. They have to answer questions about what effect the things they do have, or get stuck not doing anything. A huge part of what businesses do is interact with people, so a huge part of that effect is actually the impact on their customers' emotions. What if we make the colors on this display brighter? What if we play different music in our store? Psychology experiment! You can call it "manipulation" if you want, but you're really just going for cheap connotation points. Almost any editorial decision you could make on any subject with any audience is manipulation. Being systematic about it doesn't make it more so. Do you think you should be asked for consent before being subjected to an A/B test on an ecommerce site? Because you're definitely being manipulated in the relevant sense. It sounds to me like the objections are not so much that FB ran an experiment so much as it's that they published a paper about it. You could argue that that really is dispositive, but, well, nobody is. And it seems if they're going to do some research, we should actually encourage them to share their results.

Alupis 12y ago
I believe you completely missed the mark on this one... Facebook themselves understood they needed consent... which is why they added a blurb in their TOS. The only problem... it was 4 months after the "experiment". This was far beyond simple A/B testing. The complete disregard of ethics, and the downright Facebook fanboy-ism that is going on in this thread is bewildering.
- icambron 12y ago
  So, to demonstrate that, you need to make an argument that: 1. Describes the limits of what experimentation is ethical without consent (i.e. the relevant way in which A/B testing is different than what FB did) in a consistently applicable way. 2. Justify those limits from more basic principles. Perhaps you can make that argument, and I wouldn't mind be convinced (seriously, I have no horse in this race). But as it stands, the handwaving about "manipulation" and breathless denunciation of an advertising company for being data-driven is pretty weak. You can yell "unethical" as loud as you please and brand people taking the opposite view as "fanboys", but it's not at all convincing.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Well, just some thoughts: 1) Facebook is not an advertising company, although they are trying to be (and so far have been unsuccessful). 2) Facebook was not just manipulating adverts, but instead your entire feed, which up until recently, had been largely organic (what your friends posted, you saw... all of it). 3) Facebook never has discussed the possibility of "testing" on users, and the general assumption they do, does not excuse the practice. 4) A/B testing for which color button makes people click more often is far different than only displaying emotionally charged posts/images and seeing how users react. This has reminiscence of psychological warfare tactics employed (and now largely banned) by a Vietnam era CIA. 5) Facebook acknowledged the need for prior consent via TOS implicit agreement... but only after they had already concluded the "experiment" (actually, 4 months after). 6) If another company, say Google, manipulated your inbox without your consent nor knowledge, you would likely feel strongly. Both Gmail and Facebook are operated by companies that can do whatever they wish -- but this does not make it right to do whatever they wish.
    - voronoff 12y ago
      1) That is where a significant portion of their revenue comes from. 2) News feed has been around for a long time in a form beyond what's newest. This has been well publicized. 3) Every company with durative engagement tests on users. If they don't, they don't have the interaction with users they desire. 4) Much like how the music in stores example is reminiscent of the CIA used music torture in Guantanamo. Or maybe, just maybe, there is some nuance to discuss? 5) This is the most valid of your points, but it's not uncommon for legal documents to be updated for more general coverage and doesn't necessarily imply the activity is unethical. 6) Gmail does. It's called spam filtering.
grrowl 12y ago
When Facebook tweaks users' news feeds to track engagement based on different algorithms, it's an experiment. When a psychological researcher purposefully emotionally manipulates their test subjects without informed consent, it's unethical. The controversy is the framing of the issue, and that the published paper specifically mentions tracking engagement based on the manipulation of users' emotional state. If it was real research from the outset, it requires ethical review and informed consent, even under the guise of "anonymous news feed research which may affect what you do or don't see".
- true_religion 12y ago
  Right but they published the paper based on tweaking that ordinarily Facebook would have done anyways. One could just look at it as zoologists studying lions (Facebook) interacting with gazelles (the population) in their natural habitat. Marring this research as unethical will just stop it from being published, not stop it from happening since without publishing it it is just an ordinary business processes.
seanp2k2 12y ago
Extreme example (IANAL): a person who uses Facebook heavily and is part of the "more negative stories" group commits suicide. Is Facebook exposed to any legal risk because of this? IMO, it would have been pretty easy to ask some random users if they wanted to participate; from asking around my group of friends, we all would have opted in because we find it interesting, especially if the findings would be published.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Exactly. Most people would be delighted to be asked if they wanted to be part of Facebook's 'Insider' test group or somesuch, and they don't have to know what they're being tested on ahead of time. The FB researchers certainly knew what standard practice in this area was, any psychology/social science/economics paper that depends on tests or surveys spells the participation invite out first thing in the methodology section.
- icambron 12y ago
  > Extreme example (IANAL): a person who uses Facebook heavily and is part of the "more negative stories" group commits suicide. Is Facebook exposed to any legal risk because of this? IANAL either, but a) I'm guessing not, but b) not really the ethical question here either way (e.g. it might be legal but unethical or vice versa, or both, or neither). So I'll focus instead on the ethical question raised by the suicide: I guess I don't see how this is any different from some editor in a newsroom saying, "let's publish more gory crime stories and see what happens". Someone reads a bunch of it and commits suicide. Tragic, obviously, but not really the victim of an unethical experiment. Worse, the paper doesn't even know, since it can't monitor the response. Or: let's say FB never runs this experiment and they never find out that their current algorithm is especially depressing and all sorts of people kill themselves. What are the ethics of that?
beedogs 12y ago
I love how, no matter how slimy or nefarious or shady a company acts, there's always going to be someone here on HN defending their actions. Unbelievable.
bonaldi 12y ago
"How do you expect them to do anything?" By getting informed consent before experimenting on their users? You act like this is some outrageous bar they have to cross: it isn't.

Alupis 12y ago

I believe you completely missed the mark on this one... Facebook themselves understood they needed consent... which is why they added a blurb in their TOS. The only problem... it was 4 months after the "experiment". This was far beyond simple A/B testing. The complete disregard of ethics, and the downright Facebook fanboy-ism that is going on in this thread is bewildering.

icambron 12y ago
So, to demonstrate that, you need to make an argument that: 1. Describes the limits of what experimentation is ethical without consent (i.e. the relevant way in which A/B testing is different than what FB did) in a consistently applicable way. 2. Justify those limits from more basic principles. Perhaps you can make that argument, and I wouldn't mind be convinced (seriously, I have no horse in this race). But as it stands, the handwaving about "manipulation" and breathless denunciation of an advertising company for being data-driven is pretty weak. You can yell "unethical" as loud as you please and brand people taking the opposite view as "fanboys", but it's not at all convincing.
- Alupis 12y ago
  Well, just some thoughts: 1) Facebook is not an advertising company, although they are trying to be (and so far have been unsuccessful). 2) Facebook was not just manipulating adverts, but instead your entire feed, which up until recently, had been largely organic (what your friends posted, you saw... all of it). 3) Facebook never has discussed the possibility of "testing" on users, and the general assumption they do, does not excuse the practice. 4) A/B testing for which color button makes people click more often is far different than only displaying emotionally charged posts/images and seeing how users react. This has reminiscence of psychological warfare tactics employed (and now largely banned) by a Vietnam era CIA. 5) Facebook acknowledged the need for prior consent via TOS implicit agreement... but only after they had already concluded the "experiment" (actually, 4 months after). 6) If another company, say Google, manipulated your inbox without your consent nor knowledge, you would likely feel strongly. Both Gmail and Facebook are operated by companies that can do whatever they wish -- but this does not make it right to do whatever they wish.
  - voronoff 12y ago
    1) That is where a significant portion of their revenue comes from. 2) News feed has been around for a long time in a form beyond what's newest. This has been well publicized. 3) Every company with durative engagement tests on users. If they don't, they don't have the interaction with users they desire. 4) Much like how the music in stores example is reminiscent of the CIA used music torture in Guantanamo. Or maybe, just maybe, there is some nuance to discuss? 5) This is the most valid of your points, but it's not uncommon for legal documents to be updated for more general coverage and doesn't necessarily imply the activity is unethical. 6) Gmail does. It's called spam filtering.

grrowl 12y ago

When Facebook tweaks users' news feeds to track engagement based on different algorithms, it's an experiment. When a psychological researcher purposefully emotionally manipulates their test subjects without informed consent, it's unethical. The controversy is the framing of the issue, and that the published paper specifically mentions tracking engagement based on the manipulation of users' emotional state. If it was real research from the outset, it requires ethical review and informed consent, even under the guise of "anonymous news feed research which may affect what you do or don't see".

true_religion 12y ago
Right but they published the paper based on tweaking that ordinarily Facebook would have done anyways. One could just look at it as zoologists studying lions (Facebook) interacting with gazelles (the population) in their natural habitat. Marring this research as unethical will just stop it from being published, not stop it from happening since without publishing it it is just an ordinary business processes.

seanp2k2 12y ago

Extreme example (IANAL): a person who uses Facebook heavily and is part of the "more negative stories" group commits suicide. Is Facebook exposed to any legal risk because of this? IMO, it would have been pretty easy to ask some random users if they wanted to participate; from asking around my group of friends, we all would have opted in because we find it interesting, especially if the findings would be published.

anigbrowl 12y ago
Exactly. Most people would be delighted to be asked if they wanted to be part of Facebook's 'Insider' test group or somesuch, and they don't have to know what they're being tested on ahead of time. The FB researchers certainly knew what standard practice in this area was, any psychology/social science/economics paper that depends on tests or surveys spells the participation invite out first thing in the methodology section.
icambron 12y ago
> Extreme example (IANAL): a person who uses Facebook heavily and is part of the "more negative stories" group commits suicide. Is Facebook exposed to any legal risk because of this? IANAL either, but a) I'm guessing not, but b) not really the ethical question here either way (e.g. it might be legal but unethical or vice versa, or both, or neither). So I'll focus instead on the ethical question raised by the suicide: I guess I don't see how this is any different from some editor in a newsroom saying, "let's publish more gory crime stories and see what happens". Someone reads a bunch of it and commits suicide. Tragic, obviously, but not really the victim of an unethical experiment. Worse, the paper doesn't even know, since it can't monitor the response. Or: let's say FB never runs this experiment and they never find out that their current algorithm is especially depressing and all sorts of people kill themselves. What are the ethics of that?

beedogs 12y ago

I love how, no matter how slimy or nefarious or shady a company acts, there's always going to be someone here on HN defending their actions. Unbelievable.

bonaldi 12y ago

"How do you expect them to do anything?" By getting informed consent before experimenting on their users? You act like this is some outrageous bar they have to cross: it isn't.