[potatolicious]

I'm going to try and avoid the minefield that is this research vs. ethics.

One thought I've had is that the blowback against this incident is less about the research itself and how ethical it is, and more about perception of Facebook in general. My suspicion is a lot of the opposition at this point comes from long-simmering distrust of Facebook and the increasingly negative perception of its brand - this incident is merely the straw that broke the camel's back, for some.

And if the popular response to this revelation reflects people's general views on Facebook, it's not good for the company.

[polarix]

It's also, unfortunately, deeply harmful to humanity.

http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2014/06/28/in-defense-of-face...

> by far the most likely outcome of the backlash Facebook is currently experience is that, in future, its leadership will be less likely to allow its data scientists to publish their findings in the scientific literature

[mercer]

I'm still surprised to discover how many of my friends and acquaintances have a negative view of facebook. Many of them are not very critical of things (and care little about their privacy, for example).

The sentiment is generally something like 'I use facebook because it is too inconvenient not to, but I don't like it', which is a far cry from the initial 'facebook is this cool new thing that I wish more of my friends would use instead of <insert usually shitty local social network>'.

In that light it makes sense for facebook to acquire up-and-coming business that compete with them, directly or indirectly, and I imagine there are quite a few people at the company who worry about this situation.

And in that light it is especially strange for facebook to release a study like this. What did they think would happen?

There have been quite a few instances over the past months (or years) that really made me wonder whether facebook's biggest problem, as a company, is that they're stuck in a bubble. A newsfeed that seems to be made for specific types of users, privacy kerfuffles, apps that don't seem to take off, and so on.

'Dogfooding' is generally a smart approach, but it doesn't seem like the optimal approach when your product relies on the whole world for its success...