They altered people's feeds for a psychological experiment with the specific intent of manipulating their mood. That is highly unethical.
So, there is a difference. It's still a complex question, though -- is filtering or prioritizing based on emotional sentiment really different from what they are already doing with inserting ads and such?
Were they to filter posts by emotional sentiment as a part of their normal operations, I'd find it unethical, or at least something I might not want. But I'm totally fine with them subjecting users (including myself) to random research studies, as those are temporary situations, and with Facebook's data sets, they can have great benefits for humanity.
Perhaps Facebook should provide an opt-in option to for user to be a subject of various sociological experiments at unspecified times. I'd happily select it.
Each of those are cleary identified.
If Facebook wants to put a little icon next to each "experimental study" status update which disclosed the party that funded the study, it would be different.
Even in "science", some studies are funded and others are not.
There are any number of technical means by which:
(a) opt-in permission could be requested in advance of a study
(b) opt-out option could be advertised in advance of a study
(c) start and end dates of non-optional study could be disclosed
This is about CHOICE of participation, not the NATURE of the study.
Wow... Not understanding basic theories of communication and human irrationality that doesn't allow lots of data to be processed and accepted without critical thought.
"opt-in permission could be requested in advance of a study"
Wow... Not understanding basic theories of psychological and sociological studies that state subjects should not be informed about the study or their behavior will change.
But please, go on with your clueless "ethics".
> subjects should not be informed about the study
About the study, or about being _in_ the study?
It's been fairly well established that "I wanted to learn something" isn't an adequate excuse for doing things to people without informing them or receiving their consent.
Before you talk about peoples' "clueless 'ethics'", you might want to read the professional standards of the field, for example the American Psychological Association's Ethics Code. The section on "informed consent to research" is here: http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx?item=11#802
Would it be unethical if I broke into your house to randomly place pieces of candy and $5 bills in your drawers?
Every single company in the world knows very well that 99.99% of their userbase won't read the ToS, and use this to do whatever they want with their users' information and privacy.
There needs to be dramatic improvements in that area.
http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/facebo...
Would it be unethical if I placed candy and money around my own house, invited you into my house, and told you to take anything you desire?
Your FB profile is not your house; it is just some data you have shared with FB. FB decides what to do with the data: how to share it, where to share it, when to share it, who to share it with, etc.
Everybody knows that FB _already_ manipulates the feed to change your mood: to make you more engaged with the site; to make you click more on ads; etc. It's been doing this basically for ever.