Was this ever stated in the article? There's a big difference between diagnosing someone with mental illness and recognizing when someone is in a suicidal crisis. If someone is publicly saying things like "I wish I was dead" and "I'm going to kill myself" on Facebook, it seems highly ethical to automatically escalate to a moderator ASAP rather than waiting for someone to report it.
If someone has a heart attack in the street, would you say "I'm not a doctor, so I don't have the ability or the right to diagnose what just happened"? No, you'd recognize that it's a serious emergency and find people who are able to help. This really isn't much different.
And now a company with extremely powerful AI capabilities want to fine-tune the addiction algorithm to maximize profits.
Maybe it's more that Facebook thinks it's horrible when people kill themselves, and that if Facebook's tech could help prevent suicide, inaction would be immoral.
Most of us accept some level of State interference in our lives for our own good. Maybe we are going to have to have that discussion about involuntary interventions by corporations, too.
Its' _absolutely not_ OK for any of this information to get anywhere near the "targetted ads" part of their service. Imagine if you could advertise your alcohol products directly to alcoholics!
It's not OK for people to run explicit "psychological manipulation" experiments without the user's consent and without very specific rules with regards to the danger to the users. There's a reason why you don't replicate the prison experiment.
Maybe FB is already doing this in context of their algorithmic feed improvements. In that case they should already be asking for user consent when running these experiments.
It's not even that hard! "We're trying new changes to feeds to help show you content that is more relevant to you/more positive/etc. Click here if you want to opt-in. See here for details"
They can do right here, and I bet enough people within FB would like to do things "right", but might simply not be informed enough.
That doesn't entirely contradict what I said. We generally assume psychologists and therapists are benevolent, but they aren't allowed to disclose private information even if it's in the best interests of the patient. Even if we assume Facebook is perfectly benevolent, this kind of vigilante psychology with no oversight is scary. They've thrown out all established codes of ethics in favor of just doing whatever the hell they want.
And I'm certain Facebook isn't benevolent. They deliberately make their website as addictive as possible. They have run experiments that tried to make people unhappy. If this really is a selfless attempt to help their users, it's inconsistent with what Facebook has done before.
They may have nudged on one particular code of ethics.
Alarmism does not help your credibility.
The state is elected by the people and is - at least nominally - meant to serve them.
> Maybe we are going to have to have that discussion about involuntary interventions by corporations, too.
This is textbook Corporatocracy. I have neither the power to vote corporations in or out nor any recourse if they decide I need an "intervention". How is this not high-tech serfdom?
Of course! You can’t show ads to dead people...
The psychological disorders of today are the occult of yesterday. We believe that one can become possessed by depression or anxiety. Possessed by psychosis, possessed by a personality disorder, possessed by PTSD, possessed by a history of child abuse. And we have to call upon the psychologists to preform an exorcism.
Not with facebook, of course, which doesn’t qualify for hipaa protections yet.
Best case scenario, and this is still a stretch, is that Facebook could be guilty of slander if they describe you has suicidal and that description becomes known to a third party without your consent.
Sneaky suspicion: consent is given upon account registration.
It doesn't matter. Once you surrender data to Facebook it is theirs to do whatever they want with. That is the disclosure. There is no gray area. If you don't want Facebook having that information then don't give it to them.
> What if it's in Google docs instead?
If you didn't put it there than somebody has violated your privacy or violated HIPAA.
"If an entity does not meet the definition of a covered entity or business associate, it does not have to comply with the HIPAA Rules."
[0] - https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/covered-entities...
(Like me talking that I'm type 2 diabetic?)
For example, if you run into your physician in public, and say, "Hi Doc. Have you gotten my test results back yet?" you're the one pointing out that she's your doctor, not her. If she, unprompted, said something about your test results to you, she'd have violated HIPAA.
It's your privacy to waive as you please.
HIPAA does, however, have a section explicitly governing the privacy of patient medical information, under Title II, generally known as "The Privacy Rule".
EDIT: Tone and specificity.
This is a reflection of the way they’ve chosen to go about things - no doubt in response to past kerfuffles - rather than an actual legal obligation on fb’s analysis of public materials.
HIPAA regs aren’t hidden from the public. Peruse at your leisure.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/faceb...
Just one google search away. Keywords such as Facebook, psychology, experiments, ethics will generate lots of interesting reading, some of it with good sourcing and links for further reading.
It does for me, but there is always some excuse. Usually the mortgage or something to that effect.
They're playing psychologist and should be subject to a similar code of ethics.
Another interesting article:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...