European privacy authorities question Facebook’s emotion research

British and Irish privacy authorities are investigating whether Facebook acted illegally by investigating the manipulation of users’ emotions without prior consent. Facebook previously defended the investigation.

The British privacy authority is looking into the case and the Irish ‘privacy commissioner’ has already written questions about the investigation, writes The New York Times. That is not yet an official investigation, although it could be the starting signal for it.

The privacy authorities will look into whether Facebook should have asked users for permission in advance to conduct the investigation. Facebook initially invoked its own terms of use, but the clause for permission to participate in research, according to Forbes, Facebook only added after the research. In addition, it is questionable whether automatically allowing users to participate in the research does not violate privacy rules in various countries.

In the study, Facebook looked at whether users who see a relatively large number of positive or negative posts are influenced in their own posts as a result. Indeed, there appeared to be a connection: those who saw more positive posts were more positive in their own posts; the reverse was also true. The survey took place in 2012 among almost 700,000 users, of which Facebook adapted the News Feed.