Re:Why We Disagree with The New York Times
by RodgerTheGreat on Monday June 04, 2018 @02:14PM
(#17230465)
Staging an experiment of this nature without informed consent of the participants is unethical, irrespective of whether the technique proved to be effective.
"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" is a very popular mantra among the boy wonders of Silicon Valley.
Re:Why We Disagree with The New York Times
by blipbloop on Monday June 04, 2018 @08:44PM
(#17234031)
Was the mantra of Grace Hopper, who I wouldn't necessarily describe as a 'Boy Wonder', however she used it in the context of 'borrowing' equipment and machine time from bits of the navy and academia.
She was being dry witted about tatting stuff, not recommending human testing.
When does any company get consent for changing its product or advertising and measuring the response?
I never gave my consent to McDonald's for putting up a billboard or changing their menu or their recipe.
However, the claim that they made "hundreds of thousands of people fall into a depression" is pretty exaggerated - FB demonstrated it could influence the mood of users via changes to the algorithm, but the overall effect size was small (Cohen's d = 0.001).
I am very critical of FB and this type of research, but don't know if anyone became depressed over the experiment. It's possible, but wasn't demonstrated.
[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full