Many were furious over the disclosure of a recent study that Facebook controlled the News Feeds of its nearly 700,000 members in a previous experiment to analyze the behavior of its users and the emotional impact of positive and negative posts on them. A leading privacy organization, in fact, filed on Thursday a formal protest against the social networking site with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
In a previous report, the study conducted by researchers from Cornell University indicates that Facebook manipulated the status or post in the News Feeds of its users in an attempt to understand if negative or positive posts have similar effects on its users. A machine, however, conducted the manipulation. The researchers used Facebook’s experiment to make their own scientific studies.
When the study, Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks, came out in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal and picked up by various news outlets, Facebook users and privacy organizations were outraged by the revelation of an emotional contagion study.
The social networking site though defended its stance saying the experiment was a regular thing it does for research and development. It also reminded that the experiment went ahead without seeking agreement from each of the involved users because all Facebook users gave prior consent to conduct such experiments once they registered on the site and agreed to its terms and conditions.
Still, the privacy org. that filed the complaint argued that Facebook’s experiment is a form of deception and violation of the terms of agreement with FTC in 2012. It was agreed upon that Facebook would seek users’ consent prior to sharing any of their information and would notify users regarding privacy changes.
FTC came to an agreement in 2012 that the company would improve how it notified users about privacy changes. Facebook also agreed to gain users' consent before sharing their information.
"The company purposefully messed with people's minds," writes [pdf] the Electronic Privacy Information Center in its complaint.
Meanwhile, Facebook acknowledges the reactions of people to its experiment and takes full responsibility for such.
"We want to do better in the future and are improving our process based on this feedback," Facebook says in a statement. "The study was done with appropriate protections for people’s information and we are happy to answer any questions regulators may have."
Based on information gathered, academic researches with human subjects normally need approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB), a group of individuals from different disciplines with the mission of evaluating research proposals prior to the conduct of study. Such approval is needed to safeguard the safety of involved people. Most of the known scientific journals are said to only publish research papers that were approved by the IRB.
Whether the Facebook experiment was IRB-approved or not, among other things, is a big question among many individuals concerned, including writer Chris Chambers, who is also a neuroscientist and psychologist at Cardiff University.
"Editor of PNAS Facebook study says she is too busy to tell me which IRB approved the project or why IRB approval was not mentioned in paper," Chambers’ tweet says.
Which critics say only bring out more questions that need further answers.
