Lab Monkeys

Facebook has been conducting social experiments on its herd, and the mooing cattle are stamping their little hooves in feeble protest. Read these excerpts from the Slate article and you can almost hear her soft, pampered, pasty-white little fists beating on the plexiglass...

Facebook’s methodology raises serious ethical questions...

Here is the relevant section of Facebook’s data use policy: “For example, in addition to helping people see and find things that you do and share, we may use the information we receive about you ... for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.”

So there is a vague mention of “research” in the fine print that one agrees to by signing up for Facebook.

Any scientific investigation that receives federal funding must follow the Common Rule for human subjects... Facebook presumably receives no federal funding for such research, so the investigation might be exempt from the Common Rule.

Even if the study is legal, it appears to flout the ethical standards spelled out in instructions to scientists who wish to publish in PNAS.

Over the course of the study, it appears, the social network made some of us happier or sadder than we would otherwise have been. Now it’s made all of us more mistrustful.

Fact is, it's all perfectly legal and YOU agreed to it. Ethics, smethics; it's a multi-billion dollar corporation. They didn't get all that money by sucking the toes of blank-lobed little journo-twits such as yourself, cupcake. They couldn't care less what you think of their business practices.





Of course, she and all the rest of the farm animals will no doubt discuss it in great detail... on Facebook.

Ooh, is that a feedbag I hear?! Dinner time! Come'n get it, sweet'ums!