According to this article, Facebook conducted a study and manipulated feeds on 700,000 Facebook users, without “Informed Consent” on “How Facebook feeds influence users’ emotions”. The permission
granted to Facebook is based on a EULA that states the following:

“[Uri 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.” (From link above) This “research” initiative on the part of Facebook has ethical ramifications according to many Facebook users that were “manipulated”.

Questions for the Threaded Discussion:
1. Do you feel that service providers like Facebook have the right to conduct such a research study without a) obtaining Informed Consent, b) informing the user community of the nature of the study
and its potential emotional influence, and c) providing the user sample with the result of the study?
2. Identify the ethical issue(s) involved. 3. What impact does this have on one’s right to privacy? The link, above, provides more background information on Facebook’s Social Experiment.