Facebook Faces Investigation Following Its Unethical Mood-Manipulation Experiment
Facebook is facing more than just user backlash following news that the social network was purposely trying to manipulate user emotions during a 2012 experiment.
By Sadho Ram — 02 Jul 2014, 01:16 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
Facebook is in trouble in the UK over its controversial experiment that saw it manipulating 689,003 users' News Feeds for a week
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), a data regulator in the United Kingdom, is investigating whether or not Facebook violated data collection laws during a user study more than two years ago, according to the Financial Times.
During the study, the social network tweaked the News Feed content of nearly 700,000 users, providing some users with fewer negative terms, and others with fewer positive terms. Users were not alerted that they were being used as test subjects, and the study raised privacy concerns when the data was published.
mashable.com
At this point, the ICO is unsure whether or not Facebook actually broke any laws. It planned to question Facebook over the study.
But, because Facebook's European headquarters are based in Dublin, the agency plans to contact Ireland's data protection group about the matter, according to the Financial Times.
cnet.comAccording to the FT, the IOC can "force organizations to change their policies and levy fines of up to 500,000 British pounds [about USD857,000]"
Mark Zuckerberg speaks on stage at Facebook's F8 developers conference in San Francisco on April 30, 2014.
Image via mshcdn.comFinancially, that type of monetary punishment (it's less than $1 million) won't hurt Facebook, which brought in $2.5 billion in revenue last quarter. Instead, any type of monetary fine would be symbolic.
mashable.com
“It’s clear that people were upset by this study and we take responsibility for it. We want to do better in the future and are improving our process based on this feedback," a Facebook spokesperson wrote 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.”
Mashable reports that according to privacy experts in the U.S. Facebook probably didn't break any laws
Ryan Calo, a privacy expert and law professor at the University of Washington, told Mashable that the study may be "creepy" but not necessarily in violation of any privacy law.
mashable.com
Initial reports claimed that Facebook's Data Use Policy included "data analysis, testing, [and] research" as possible ways Facebook could utilize user data. However, a Forbes report, which surfaced Monday, found that Facebook added this line about testing and research four months after the emotion-manipulation study actually took place.
Facebook tweaks its News Feed often to surface different types of content for users in hopes of generating more engagement (Likes, shares, clicks, etc.). Nevertheless, the implications surrounding this type of study appear to be more troubling than usual for those users who don't appreciate Facebook experimenting on them.
mashable.com
Facebook already struggles with user trust issues when it comes to privacy, and this experiment isn't helping the company's cause.
cnet.comFor its part, Facebook has defended the study and said that there was "no unnecessary collection of people's data"
"None of the data used was associated with a specific person's Facebook account," the social networking giant said at the time. On Tuesday, Mr Allen said: "It's clear that people were upset by this study and we take responsibility for it. We want to do better in the future and are improving our process based on this feedback."
Meanwhile, Adam Kramer of Facebook, who co-authored the report on the research, has admitted the firm did not "clearly state our motivations in the paper. I can understand why some people have concerns about it, and my co-authors and I are very sorry for the way the paper described the research and any anxiety it caused," he said earlier this week.
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