Facebook’s experiment is just the latest to manipulate you in the name of research; Pew Research Center, 7/2/14

Rich Morin, Pew Research Center; Facebook’s experiment is just the latest to manipulate you in the name of research:

"But is what Facebook did ethical? There is a good amount of discussion about whether Facebook was transparent enough with its users about this kind of experimentation. They did not directly inform those in the study that they were going to be used as human lab rats. In academic research, that’s called not obtaining “informed consent” and is almost always a huge no-no. (Facebook claims that everyone who joins Facebook agrees as part of its user agreement to be included in such studies.)

The question is now about how, sitting on troves of new social media and other digital data to mine for the same kind of behavioral analysis, the new rules will need to be written.

Experimental research is rife with examples of how study participants have been manipulated, tricked or outright lied to in the name of social science. And while many of these practices have been curbed or banned in academe, they continue to be used in commercial and other types of research."