Our Facebook masks slip a little

Second video of the day:

It’s rather ironic that it hit the web a few days before the news that Facebook is running experiments on our emotions.

There’s a whole bunch of interesting research to be done on constructed identity using social networks, and I bet every single person on here is guilty of it to some degree. I very rarely see the sadness and difficulty of people’s lives reflected in social networks – so much for radical transparency, huh?

However, Facebook’s approach here is just uncomfortable. As Mary puts it:

Where things get rather concerning is the part where Facebook didn’t bother telling any of its test subjects that they were being tested. The US has a few regulations governing clinical research that make clear informed consent must be given by human test subjects. Informed consent requires subjects to know that research is occurring, be given a description of the risks involved, and have the option to refuse to participate without being penalised. None of these things were available to the anonymous people involved in the study.

Consent matters, people.