Case Study:In 2014 it was learned that Facebook had been experimenting on its own users’ emotional manipulability, by altering the news feeds of almost 700,000 users to see whether Facebook engineers placing more positive or negative content in those feeds could create effects of positive or negative ‘emotional contagion’ that would spread between users. Facebook’s published study which concluded that such emotional contagion could be induced via social networks on a “massive scale,” was highly controversial, since the affected users were unaware that they were the subjects of a scientific experiment, or that their news feed was being used to manipulate their emotions and moods.Facebook’s Data Use Policy, which users must agree to before creating an account, did not include the phrase “constituting informed consent for research” until four months after the study concluded. However, the company argued that their activities were still covered by the earlier data policy wording, even without the explicit reference to ‘research.’ Facebook also argued that the purpose of the study was consistent with the user agreement, namely, to give Facebook knowledge it needs to provide users with a positive experience on the platform.Critics objected on several grounds, claiming that:• Facebook violated long-held standards for ethical scientific research in the U.S. and Europe, which require specific and explicit informed consent from human research subjects involved in medical or psychological studies;• That such informed consent should not in any case be implied by agreements to a generic Data Use Policy that few users are known to carefully read or understand;• That Facebook abused users’ trust by using their online data-sharing activities for an undisclosed and unexpected purpose;• That the researchers seemingly ignored the specific harms to people that can come from emotional manipulation. For example, thousands of the 689,000 study subjects almost certainly suffer from clinical depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder, but were not excluded from the study by those higher risk factors. The study lacked key mechanisms of research ethics that are commonly used to minimize the potential emotional harms of such a study, for example, amechanism for debriefing unwitting subjects after the study concludes, or a mechanism to exclude participants under the age of 18 (another population especially vulnerable to emotional volatility). Discussion questions:1. Were Facebook’s users justified and reasonable in reacting negatively to the news of the study? Was the study ethical? Why or why not?2. Who is morally accountable for any harms caused by the study? Within a large organization like Facebook, how should responsibility for preventing unethical data conduct be distributed, and why might that be a challenge to figure out?
Case Study:
In 2014 it was learned that Facebook had been experimenting on its
own users’ emotional manipulability, by altering the news feeds of almost
700,000 users to see whether Facebook engineers placing more positive or
negative content in those feeds could create effects of positive or negative
‘emotional contagion’ that would spread between users. Facebook’s
published study which concluded that such emotional contagion could be
induced via social networks on a “massive scale,” was highly controversial,
since the affected users were unaware that they were the subjects of a
scientific experiment, or that their news feed was being used to manipulate
their emotions and moods.
Facebook’s Data Use Policy, which users must agree to before
creating an account, did not include the phrase “constituting informed
consent for research” until four months after the study concluded.
However, the company argued that their activities were still covered by the
earlier data policy wording, even without the explicit reference to
‘research.’ Facebook also argued that the purpose of the study was
consistent with the user agreement, namely, to give Facebook knowledge it
needs to provide users with a positive experience on the platform.
Critics objected on several grounds, claiming that:
• Facebook violated long-held standards for ethical scientific research
in the U.S. and Europe, which require specific and explicit informed
consent from human research subjects involved in medical or
psychological studies;
• That such informed consent should not in any case be implied by
agreements to a generic Data Use Policy that few users are known to
carefully read or understand;
• That Facebook abused users’ trust by using their online data-sharing
activities for an undisclosed and unexpected purpose;
• That the researchers seemingly ignored the specific harms to people
that can come from emotional manipulation. For example, thousands
of the 689,000 study subjects almost certainly suffer from clinical
depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder, but were not excluded from
the study by those higher risk factors. The study lacked key
mechanisms of research ethics that are commonly used to minimize
the potential emotional harms of such a study, for example, a
mechanism for debriefing unwitting subjects after the study
concludes, or a mechanism to exclude participants under the age of
18 (another population especially vulnerable to emotional volatility).
Discussion questions:
1. Were Facebook’s users justified and reasonable in reacting negatively
to the news of the study? Was the study ethical? Why or why not?
2. Who is morally accountable for any harms caused by the study? Within
a large organization like Facebook, how should responsibility for
preventing unethical data conduct be distributed, and why might that
be a challenge to figure out?
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