In defense of In Defense of Facebook

A long, long time ago (in social media terms), I wrote a post defending Facebook against accusations of ethical misconduct related to a newly-published study in PNAS. I won’t rehash the study, or the accusations, or my comments in any detail here; for that, you can read the original post (I also recommend reading this or this for added context). While I stand by most of what I wrote, as is the nature of things, sometimes new information comes to light, and sometimes people say things that make me change my mind. So I thought I’d post my updated thoughts and reactions. I also left some additional thoughts in a comment on my last post, which I won’t rehash here.

Anyway, in no particular order…

I’m not arguing for a lawless world where companies can do as they like with your data

Some people apparently interpreted my last post as a defense of Facebook’s data use policy in general. It wasn’t. I probably brought this on myself in part by titling the post “In Defense of Facebook”. Maybe I should have called it something like “In Defense of this one particular study done by one Facebook employee”. In any case, I’ll reiterate: I’m categorically not saying that Facebook–or any other company, for that matter–should be allowed to do whatever it likes with its users’ data. There are plenty of valid concerns one could raise about the way companies like Facebook store, manage, and use their users’ data. And for what it’s worth, I’m generally in favor of passing new rules regulating the use of personal data in the private sector. So, contrary to what some posts suggested, I was categorically not advocating for a laissez-faire world in which large corporations get to do as they please with your information, and there’s nothing us little people can do about it.

The point I made in my last post was much narrower than that–namely, that picking on the PNAS study as an example of ethically questionable practices at Facebook was a bad idea, because (a) there aren’t any new risks introduced by this manipulation that aren’t already dwarfed by the risks associated with using Facebook itself (which is not exactly a high-risk enterprise to begin with), and (b) there are literally thousands of experiments just like this being conducted every day by large companies intent on figuring out how best to market their products and services–so Facebook’s study doesn’t stand out in any respect. My point was not that you shouldn’t be concerned about who has your data and how they’re using it, but that it’s deeply counterproductive to go after Facebook for this particular experiment when Facebook is of the few companies in this arena who actually (occasionally) publish the results of their findings in the scientific literature, instead of hiding them entirely from the light, as almost everyone else does. Of course, that will probably change as a result of this controversy.

I Was Wrong–A/B Testing Edition.

One claim I made in my last post that was very clearly wrong is this (emphasis added):

What makes the backlash on this issue particularly strange is that I’m pretty sure most people do actually realize that their experience on Facebook (and on other websites, and on TV, and in restaurants, and in museums, and pretty much everywhere else) is constantly being manipulated. I expect that most of the people who’ve been complaining about the Facebook study on Twitter are perfectly well aware that Facebook constantly alters its user experience““I mean, they even see it happen in a noticeable way once in a while, whenever Facebook introduces a new interface.

After watching the commentary over the past two days, I think it’s pretty clear I was wrong about this. A surprisingly large number of people clearly were genuinely unaware that Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other major players in every major industry (not just tech–also banks, groceries, department stores, you name it) are constantly running large-scale, controlled experiments on their users and customers. For instance, here’s a telling comment left on my last post:

The main issue I have with the experiment is that they conducted it without telling us. Given, that would have been counterproductive, but even a small adverse affect is still an adverse affect. I just don’t like the idea that corporations can do stuff to me without my consent. Just my opinion.

Similar sentiments are all over the place. Clearly, the revelation that Facebook regularly experiments on its users without their knowledge was indeed just that to many people–a revelation. I suppose in this sense, there’s potentially a considerable upside to this controversy, inasmuch as it has clearly served to raise awareness of industry-standard practices.

Questions about the ethics of the PNAS paper’s publication

My post focused largely on the question of whether the experiment Facebook conducted was itself illegal or unethical. I took this to be the primary concern of most lay people who have expressed concern about the episode. As I discussed in my post, I think it’s quite clear that the experiment itself is (a) entirely legal and that (b) any ethical objections one could raise are actually much broader objections about the way we regulate data use and consumer privacy, and have nothing to do with Facebook in particular. However, there’s a separate question that does specifically concern Facebook–or really, the authors of the PNAS paper–which is whether the authors, in their efforts to publish their findings, violated any laws or regulations.

When I wrote my post, I was under the impression–based largely on reports of an interview with the PNAS editor, Susan Fiske–that the authors had in fact obtained approval to conduct the study from an IRB, and had simply neglected to include that information in the text (which would have been an Editorial lapse, but not an unethical act). I wrote as much in a comment on my post. I was not suggesting–as some seemed to take away–that Facebook doesn’t need to get IRB approval. I was operating on the assumption that it had obtained IRB approval, based on the information available at the time.

In any case, it now appears that may not be exactly what happened. Unfortunately, it’s not yet clear exactly what did happen. One version of events people have suggested is that the study’s authors exploited a loophole in the rules by having Facebook conduct and analyze the experiment without the involvement of the other authors–who only contributed to the genesis of the idea and the writing of the manuscript. However, this interpretation is not unambiguous, and risks maligning the authors’ reputations unfairly, because Adam Kramer’s post explaining the motivation for the experiment suggests that the idea for the experiment originated entirely at Facebook, and was related to internal needs:

The reason we did this research is because we care about the emotional impact of Facebook and the people that use our product. We felt that it was important to investigate the common worry that seeing friends post positive content leads to people feeling negative or left out. At the same time, we were concerned that exposure to friends’ negativity might lead people to avoid visiting Facebook. We didn’t clearly state our motivations in the paper.

How you interpret the ethics of the study thus depends largely on what you believe actually happened. If you believe that the genesis and design of the experiment were driven by Facebook’s internal decision-making, and the decision to publish an interesting finding came only later, then there’s nothing at all ethically questionable about the authors’ behavior. It would have made no more sense to seek out IRB approval for this one experiment than for any of the other in-house experiments Facebook regularly conducts. And there is, again, no question whatsoever that Facebook does not have to get approval from anyone to do experiments that are not for the purpose of systematic, generalizable research.

Moreover, since the non-Facebook authors did in fact ask the IRB to review their proposal to use archival data–and the IRB exempted them from review, as is routinely done for this kind of analysis–there would be no legitimacy to the claim that the authors acted unethically. About the only claim one could raise an eyebrow at is that the authors “didn’t clearly state” their motivations. But since presenting a post-hoc justification for one’s studies that has nothing to do with the original intention is extremely common in psychology (though it shouldn’t be), it’s not really fair to fault Kramer et al for doing something that is standard practice.

If, on the other hand, the idea for the study did originate outside of Facebook, and the authors deliberately attempted to avoid prospective IRB review, then I think it’s fair to say that their behavior was unethical. However, given that the authors were following the letter of the law (if clearly not the spirit), it’s not clear that PNAS should have, or could have, rejected the paper. It certainly should have demanded that information regarding interactions with the IRB be included in the manuscript, and perhaps it could have published some kind of expression of concern alongside the paper. But I agree with Michelle Meyer’s analysis that, in taking the steps they took, the authors are almost certainly operating within the rules, because (a) Facebook itself is not subject to HHS rules, (b) the non-Facebook authors were not technically “engaged in research”, and (c) the archival use of already-collected data by the non-Facebook authors was approved by the Cornell IRB (or rather, the study was exempted from further review).

Absent clear evidence of what exactly happened in the lead-up to publication, I think the appropriate course of action is to withhold judgment. In the interim, what the episode clearly does do is lay bare how ill-prepared the existing HHS regulations are for dealing with the research use of data collected online–particularly when the data was acquired by private entities. Actually, it’s not just research use that’s problematic; it’s clear that many people complaining about Facebook’s conduct this week don’t really give a hoot about the “generalizable knowledge” side of things, and are fundamentally just upset that Facebook is allowed to run these kinds of experiments at all without providing any notification.

In my view, what’s desperately called for is a new set of regulations that provide a unitary code for dealing with consumer data across the board–i.e., in both research and non-research contexts. This leaves aside exactly what such regulations would look like, of course. My personal view is that the right direction to move in is to tighten consumer protection laws to better regulate management and use of private citizens’ data, while simultaneously liberalizing the research use of private datasets that have already been acquired. For example, I would favor a law that (a) forced Facebook and other companies to more clearly and explicitly state how they use their users’ data, (b) provided opt-out options when possible, along with the ability for users to obtain report of how their data has been used in the past, and (c) gave blanket approval to use data acquired under these conditions for any and all academic research purposes so long as the data are deidentified. Many people will disagree with this, of course, and have very different ideas. That’s fine; the key point is that the conversation we should be having is about how to update and revise the rules governing research vs. non-research uses of data in such a way that situations like the PNAS study don’t come up again.

What Facebook does is not research–until they try to publish it

Much of the outrage over the Facebook experiment is centered around the perception that Facebook shouldn’t be allowed to conduct research on its users without their consent. What many people mean by this, I think, is that Facebook shouldn’t be allowed to conduct any experiments on its users for purposes of learning things about user experience and behavior unless Facebook explicitly asks for permission. A point that I should have clarified in my original post is that Facebook users are, in the normal course of things, not considered participants in a research study, no matter how or how much their emotions are manipulated. That’s because the HHS’s definition of research includes, as a necessary component, that there be an active intention to contribute to generalizable new knowledge.

Now, to my mind, this isn’t a great way to define “research”–I think it’s a good idea to avoid definitions that depend on knowing what people’s intentions were when they did something. But that’s the definition we’re stuck with, and there’s really no ambiguity over whether Facebook’s normal operations–which include constant randomized, controlled experimentation on its users–constitute research in this sense. They clearly don’t. Put simply, if Facebook were to eschew disseminating its results to the broader community, the experiment in question would not have been subject to any HHS regulations whatsoever (though, as Michelle Meyer astutely pointed out, technically the experiment probably isn’t subject to HHS regulation even now, so the point is moot). Again, to reiterate: it’s only the fact that Kramer et al wanted to publish their results in a scientific journal that opened them up to criticism of research misconduct in the first place.

This observation may not have any impact on your view if your concern is fundamentally about the publication process–i.e., you don’t object to Facebook doing the experiment; what you object to is Facebook trying to disseminate their findings as research. But it should have a strong impact on your views if you were previously under the impression that Facebook’s actions must have violated some existing human subjects regulation or consumer protection law. The laws in the United States–at least as I understand them, and I admittedly am not a lawyer–currently afford you no such protection.

Now, is it a good idea to have two very separate standards, one for research and one for everything else? Probably not. Should Facebook be allowed to do whatever it wants to your user experience so long as it’s covered under the Data Use policy in the user agreement you didn’t read? Probably not. But what’s unequivocally true is that, as it stands right now, your interactions with Facebook–no matter how your user experience, data, or emotions are manipulated–are not considered research unless Facebook manipulates your experience with the express intent of disseminating new knowledge to the world.

Informed consent is not mandatory for research studies

As a last point, there seems to be a very common misconception floating around among commentators that the Facebook experiment was unethical because it didn’t provide informed consent, which is a requirement for all research studies involving experimental manipulation. I addressed this in the comments on my last post in response to other comments:

[I]t’s simply not correct to suggest that all human subjects research requires informed consent. At least in the US (where Facebook is based), the rules governing research explicitly provide for a waiver of informed consent. Directly from the HHS website:

An IRB may approve a consent procedure which does not include, or which alters, some or all of the elements of informed consent set forth in this section, or waive the requirements to obtain informed consent provided the IRB finds and documents that:

(1) The research involves no more than minimal risk to the subjects;

(2) The waiver or alteration will not adversely affect the rights and welfare of the subjects;

(3) The research could not practicably be carried out without the waiver or alteration; and

(4) Whenever appropriate, the subjects will be provided with additional pertinent information after participation.

Granting such waivers is a commonplace occurrence; I myself have had online studies granted waivers before for precisely these reasons. In this particular context, it’s very clear that conditions (1) and (2) are met (because this easily passes the “not different from ordinary experience” test). Further, Facebook can also clearly argue that (3) is met, because explicitly asking for informed consent is likely not viable given internal policy, and would in any case render the experimental manipulation highly suspect (because it would no longer be random). The only point one could conceivably raise questions about is (4), but here again I think there’s a very strong case to be made that Facebook is not about to start providing debriefing information to users every time it changes some aspect of the news feed in pursuit of research, considering that its users have already agreed to its User Agreement, which authorizes this and much more.

Now, if you disagree with the above analysis, that’s fine, but what should be clear enough is that there are many IRBs (and I’ve personally interacted with some of them) that would have authorized a waiver of consent in this particular case without blinking. So this is clearly well within “reasonable people can disagree” territory, rather than “oh my god, this is clearly illegal and unethical!” territory.

I can understand the objection that Facebook should have applied for IRB approval prior to conducting the experiment (though, as I note above, that’s only true if the experiment was initially conducted as research, which is not clear right now). However, it’s important to note that there is no guarantee that an IRB would have insisted on informed consent at all in this case. There’s considerable heterogeneity in different IRBs’ interpretation of the HHS guidelines (and in fact, even across different reviewers within the same IRB), and I don’t doubt that many IRBs would have allowed Facebook’s application to sail through without any problems (see, e.g., this comment on my last post)–though I think there’s a general consensus that a debriefing of some kind would almost certainly be requested.