[aristus]

Let's try a thought experiment. What if two Princeton students published an un-peer-reviewed paper on arXiv that said something useful, like revealing the origins of life, or the perfect cookie recipe? Would you argue quite as hard about how unfair it all is to call it a "Princeton study?" Or would you smile and take the reflected credit?

Note that all the press now is about how "Facebook" responded to the study. It was actually a single person, Mike, who posted a note to his personal wall with some help from friends.

Being a member of an institution means you represent the institution in all your actions. That's what being a member of an institution means.

[judk]

Mike is employed by Facebook as an audience researcher, which makes him more of an official representative of his institution (in regard to the topic at hand) than a mechanical engineering student is of theirs.