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Facebook sort-of apologizes for treating users like lab rats

  • 6 October 2014
  • 3 replies
  • 629 views
Jasper_The_Rasper
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Userlevel 7
Badge +54
by Lisa Vaas on October 6, 2014
 
 

Facebook says there are a few things about its experiment on users' emotional states that it "should have done differently."
Like maybe receive informed consent from people before you modulate their newsfeeds so as to show them sadder/madder/gladder content in your efforts to determine if emotional states are contagious?
Well, no, not exactly.
In a blog post on Thursday, Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer said that the crew was "unprepared" for the ruckus stirred up at the end of June about its emotional contagion research, that Facebook has taken the comments and criticism to heart, and that aspects of the research could have/should have been tweaked:
 
Full Article

3 replies

nic
Userlevel 7
Badge +56
I thought their apology was a bit mealy-mouthed.  I'd like to see the exact guidelines that they claim to be rolling out, to see if they conform to APA guidelines.  I'd also like to see the researcher who conducted that research fired, and I'd like to see an effort to reach out to the experiment subjects to debrief and offer counseling.
shorTcircuiT
Rank
Userlevel 7
It sounded to me more like a "Sorry WE got caught.  Maybe we should have been more transparent, but we have the right to experiment and we will continue to do so."  
nic
Userlevel 7
Badge +56
Agree 100%!  "We'll try to do better in some vague unexplained way"

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