‘Facebook team behind controversial investigation could go on for years’

The Facebook team responsible for a controversial experiment of manipulating users’ emotions has been able to run virtually undisturbed for years. The team is now bound by stricter rules.

Until the research on emotions, the data science team at Facebook was hardly restricted, writes The Wall Street Journal. An employee of the team was able to set up a test without any questions, which unknowingly used the Facebook users as the research population. In fact, so many tests were conducted that researchers feared that the study participants were taking part in multiple studies at once.

In one case, thousands of Facebook users were told they had been banned from Facebook because the social network suspected they were robots or using fake names. To regain access to Facebook, they had to prove their identity. In reality, Facebook didn’t think they were robots or using fake names at all, but wanted to test its anti-fraud measures. For example, the team’s other tests related to family communication, the cause of loneliness, and the way in which norms of behavior spread through the social network.

Since the beginning of this year, a panel of in-house experts in areas such as privacy and security has had to deal with investigations as soon as they go beyond simple tests. The company is considering further measures. Incidentally, Facebook is also praised for its research: external researchers praise the fact that Facebook shares many of its studies in scientific journals.

The social network’s data science team made headlines last week after it published a paper on a controversial experiment. In addition, the number of messages with a positive or negative undertone in the user’s timeline was increased to investigate what effect this had on the user. In practice, that of more positive posts in his own posts also turned out to be more positive; the same goes for negative.

Facebook has since apologized for the ‘poor communication’ surrounding the investigation. The company may be awaiting an investigation by the British and Irish privacy watchdogs.