The revelation that a Facebook research team lead by Alan Kramer experimented with users’ emotional states is a disturbing story on many levels, the immediate consequence is a further erosion in the public trust of social media services.
Facebook, like many social media services, has received a lot of criticism in recent times as the company tries to make enough money to justify its $160 billion valuation.
Most of that criticism has been around the re-arranging of users’ feeds with Facebook’s algorithm deciding what information should be displayed based upon a user’s history with a liberal sprinkling of advertising thrown in.
The Kramer research though takes Facebook’s manipulation of users’ information to another level, along with raising a range of ethical issues.
One of the most concerning issues is the claim that the experiment’s subjects had given informed consent by agreeing to Facebook’s Terms of Service. This is dangerous ground.
The dangerous ground, apart from the gross overreach of customer terms of service this behaviour risks losing the market’s trust; once Facebook or other social media and cloud computing services are viewed as untrustworthy, they are doomed.
For Facebook it might be that the abuse of user trust is the biggest social experiment of all: How far can the company push the public?
We may soon find out.
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