The uproar over this particular experiment seems like a bit much, but it doesn't hurt to start to have these conversations about research on users using the web. There is only going to be more of it going forward.
Purposefully experimenting, on a large scale, with peoples emotions when they don't know about it to try and make them sad or angry is a big deal. The Facebook paper looks at whether negative posts cause people to be more negative. What happens if someone with depression, who visits Facebook to vicariously share in others happiness, is placed into the negative-contagion test group? Is Facebook responsible for any harm that results?
There's a reason why psychology studies (any human study really) require informed consent. There is potential for great damage and Facebook apparently doesn't care.
Now I can hear someone saying that advertisement is the same thing. Advertisers are trying to change peoples' emotions, yes, but we know and recognize that while watching an ad. People using Facebook do not expect to be manipulated like the study did.
You need to be upset about any online company that does A/B testing also then without consent. Does this new button make people happy and want to subscribe to our content vs. our old design? This outrage is overblown and really only exists because it is from Facebook.
A/B testing is not the same thing as manipulating content based on negative/positive connotation and tracking user emotion change as a result. They're conceptually similar but the resulting change in user expression is not. A/B testing is optimizing your site and user interactions with it, Facebook's experiment is trying to change a users interactions with the world.
I would be just as upset if it were Google or my local grocer.
Sure it is. All advertising is manipulating user emotion, and A/B testing different advertising methods / button layouts on your site to improve conversions is one such use.
If this is something that upsets you I suggest being upset at every commercial on the radio / newspaper / tv / billboard that you're unfortunately exposed to every day.
At the end of the day, it does boil down to how users feel, but legit A/B seeks better features, improved user-experience, or identifying something better. The tech community, developers and data folks need to understand that all A/B is not equal. If we allow FB (or OKC) to pass off their ill-thought psych experiments as normal A/B or similar day-to-day product testing, we lower the UE bar. It has also been pointed out elsewhere that this particular study was/is illegal, violating certain state laws on Common Rule practice regardless of funding source. I hope that board members and the C-suite take a new leadership role to educate their teams as to what acceptable and legal A/B should look like.
People know ads are trying to manipulate them, they don't know that Facebook is actively trying to make them feel happier or sadder. Just because two things are similar does not make them morally equivalent.
A real-world comparison of the two different types of experiments:
Grocer wants to see the effect of a product demo's effect on sales. They have a worker offer a product sample, then recommend a pairing of products vs offering a coupon for that product. A/B testing.
Grocer wants to see the effect of a product's demo on the customer's emotions. He has the demo worker gripe about their boss, or talking positively about the community, then asks the cashiers for followup feedback on the smalltalk at their counters.
Sure, but the problem here is that this study blurred academic and corporate boundaries. Studies I've conducted involved telling the participants after the study that they were being recorded. Immediately after.
It is a requirement instituted by the IRB in most universities. That is the problem being mentioned here.
Furthermore, Facebook is a different case from most companies because it is an intrinsically personal website that has the potential to affect a user's life very meaningfully. Amazon changing the design or location of a button doesn't affect me as much.
