Canadian, British, and French privacy authorities are looking into a Facebook experiment on its users. Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner has, in the past, worked with Facebook to improve users’ privacy, and says it will seek more information about this particular case.
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg issued an apology Wednesday, after news broke that it had run a two-year experiment on some 700,000 users to see if their moods could be changed by what was posted on their feeds. It found that when the posts were positive, users were more likely to, themselves, put up positive posts.
Facebook needs this kind of information to update its operations and keep users interested, says independent technology analyst Carmy Levy. But he thinks its mistake was in not informing users.
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‘People…treated like lab rats’
“A lot of people didn’t like being part of a large-scale experiment where they were basically treated like lab rats. Worse, they didn’t like doing so without being advised in advance. Some people might have chosen not to participate.
“So really it does question the ethics of the company. Should you be doing this kind of large-scale experimentation without first advising your users that they are part of the process,” says Levy.
“(This experiment) raises some questions that we are following up on,” the Canadian Office of the Privacy Commissioner told CBC News in an email Thursday. “We will be contacting Facebook to seek further details related to this research and have been in touch with some of our international counterparts about the matter.”
Canadian officials affect privacy
Canadian privacy officials have already worked directly and extensively with Facebook on privacy issues. “In fact, many of the rules and processes that Facebook has in place today to deal with things like privacy and data management are largely a result of this Canadian experience,” says Levy. He notes that many officials from the Privacy Commissioner’s Office went to Facebook headquarters and worked directly with software developers to help them create features that were privacy-aware. These features were then rolled out globally.
‘Canada has a very strong impact’
“You may not recognize this, but Canada has a very strong impact on the way Facebook works around the world, and that legacy continues to this day,” says Levy.
The privacy settings on Facebook are much simpler and easier to use now thanks to Canadian intervention, says Levy. In addition, features are no longer turned on by default, but must be activated by users, and Facebook does not make changes without first have the user allow them. In future, Levy says Canadian intervention will lead to easier-to-read user agreements.
‘Read your user agreement’
Facebook will continue to need its users’ data to update its operations, says Levy, but it may choose to do so in a different way. In the meantime he thinks all social media users should read the agreements put out by Facebook, Twitter, Google or any interactive site they use. That way they know exactly what they are getting into. As Levy puts it, “A little information goes a long way.”
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