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BRITISH AUTHORITIES WILL question Facebook over an experiment in which the social network secretly manipulated the feelings of users to test their mood, officials said Wednesday.
Facebook tampered with the system used to create news feeds for 700,000 users to test “emotional contagion” for one week in 2012 without their knowledge. It did not seek explicit consent beforehand, but claims its Terms of Service contract with users permits blanket “research”.
The Information Commissioner’s Office, Britain’s independent data watchdog, said it was now looking into the case.
“We’re aware of this issue and will be speaking to Facebook, as well as liaising with the Irish data protection authority, to learn more about the circumstances,” a spokesman told AFP.
Facebook’s European headquarters are based in the Irish capital Dublin, meaning EU laws, not US ones, apply to its operations.
News of the psychological experiment has caused anger among Facebook’s more than one billion active users, with some calling it “super disturbing”, “creepy” and “evil”.
Researchers wanted to see if the number of positive or negative words in messages the users read determined whether they then posted positive or negative content in their status updates.
The study, conducted by researchers affiliated with Facebook and Cornell University and the University of California at San Francisco in the United States, was published in June.
Facebook said it was “happy” to answer the British regulator’s questions.
“It’s clear that people were upset by this study and we take responsibility for it,” a Facebook spokesman told AFP by email.
“We want to do better in the future and are improving our process based on this feedback.
“The study was done with appropriate protections for people’s information and we are happy to answer any questions regulators may have.”
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Legal action against FB should be on the cards.This is akin to using rats in a lab experiment.Another reason to stay away from FB.Hopefully it goes the way of Bebo and fades into obscurity.
You need standing to sue someone. First off, prove that you were one of their guinea pigs. Secondly, make a convincing case that you actually suffered! Facebook’s voluntary, guys.
I’m not a lawyer and I’m relatively sure I was not one of the subjects in the experiment,but you can be guaranteed some hot-shot legal eagle somewhere will be concocting a case against FB.It is voluntary but I’m sure nobody signs up with the knowledge that they maybe taking part in human experimentation.
I am sure that ambulance chasers across the land will be sniffing around for some free publicity / an out of court settlement.
Pretty sure you give that right up when you agree their terms and conditions. I’m sure there is a clause there saying “Facebook may use your usage data .. Blah blah blah”
Jake do you know that for a fact, or are you just assuming? If it’s the latter, you have no business saying you’re “pretty sure”.
Just because is it’s in FB’s terms and conditions does not mean it’s legally sound and unchallengeable,and there is a difference between using data and intentionally manipulating it to elicit an emotional reaction from a user.
Facebook actually changed their terms of use after this experiment was conducted to make it seem more ethical. Which of course it is not
I would be as worried about the colleges involved in the study! Where were their ethics committees and oversight? They have just as many questions to answer and they would have been the ones to formulate the experiment not facebook. I wonder did they approach facebook to carry it out or vice versa.
I looked after a global website about 12 years ago which had a guestbook attached to it. Like clockwork I could tell when the World was in a better mood or not, I had to moderate every entry in the guestbook which in the space of a couple of years had 80,000 entries, as it was a job for me I would notice about 3 weeks of positive entries and then about 5 days of negative entries. The website was fairly static so there were no changes on the site to change peoples mood so I just put it down too some mad event that we are all unaware of that we as a race have some sort of mood swing as a group without even knowing it ourselves. I think i understand why Facebook did the experiment. For me I think it’s interesting although they went about it the wrong way.
I also noticed when people around the world leaving comments were in a happy mood the website was busier, and when in a bad mood the site would have less traffic.
This is possibly related to lunar phases. My dad first told me about this when a guy in his work would go bonkers once a month and they eventually figured out it was the moon.
Wiki: The term lunatic derives from the Latin lunaticus which originally referred mainly to epilepsy and “madness” as diseases caused by the Moon.
The moon is always in the sky and orbits the earth and is illuminated by the sun the same amount all the time. The “phases” are a result of your viewing angle. The only time the moon is not illuminated is during a lunar eclipse.
Did the guy go “bonkers” when it was overcast?
Watch out people ” big brother is watching you”!!
The problem for Facebook is that no amount of contractual terms between themselves and their users can be written or used to break the law. They cannot simply put whatever the hell they want to in there and expect to get away with it.
When people call something ‘super disturbing’ therein lies the problem.
They will start the investigation when the mood takes them
Do people really care? I mean build a bridge and all…..
Is Billy on the case? We can all sleep soundly tonight, so.
Deactivated Facebook a while ago it was great at the start but it’s turned into a monster now.
This will all become clear on Derren Brown’s ‘The Facebook Experiment’.
Naughty facebook
Red facebook?
They didn’t prove emotional contagion I.e. That they manipulated your emotions. They manipulated the words you used. If one of your FB friends posted that they suffered a berievement you are hardly going to post that you’re having great craic- even if you are. Note that the effect these guys found is so small as to be insignificant. So no big deal.
have your say