Facebook has recently come under fire for conducting an experiment described as “massive-scale” emotional contagion in the social network. While the idea that Facebook views friends as guinea pigs may be unnerving to some, the controversy has centred on the fact that neither Facebook nor researchers from Cornell University obtained informed consent from the study subjects.
The study results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences despite a lack of institutional review board (IRB) approval (Kramer et al. PNAS USA 2014;111:8788-8790; free full text at www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full.pdf). Read More