3 ms·
When Facebook tweaks users' news feeds to track engagement based on different algorithms, it's an experiment. When a psychological researcher purposefully emoti
by 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 agoRight 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.