Ethical Implications of Facebook's Research: A Discussion

This discussion post delves into the ethical considerations surrounding Facebook's research on emotional contagion, where the social media platform manipulated users' news feeds to study their emotional responses. The author argues that the actions, which involved altering the content seen by users without their consent, did not justify the cause of the research. The post highlights the breach of trust and the importance of user consent in research, particularly when dealing with sensitive issues like emotions. It emphasizes that the value of the research findings did not outweigh the ethical concerns of manipulating users' emotional states. The post concludes with a reaffirmation of the stance that the unethical nature of the experiment makes the actions unjustifiable.

Running head: DISCUSSION ON ETHICS
DISCUSSION ON ETHICS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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DISCUSSION ON ETHICS
I take a stand on the notion that “actions do not justify the cause” when it comes to
Facebook manipulating users’ news feed to perform a study on emotions without the consent or
knowledge of the users. The social media giant used the data of more than 689,000 users to study
about the expression of positive and negative emotions of the users depending on the positive
and negative posts on Facebook. The action here is the performing of the study and the cause is
the analysis of people’s response to such posts. However, I argue that the actions failed to justify
the cause because it was not done with consent from the people and hence, I could say that
Facebook played with people’s emotions.
Along with the researchers from the University of California, and the Cornell University,
Facebook manipulated the news feed of the users because had they informed them about the
study beforehand, they would not have been able to find credible result. Nonetheless,
manipulating the emotions of people by manipulating their news feed is a direct breach of their
trust they put in the social networking site. The cause was not as important to be revealed as was
maintaining the trust of the users. Therefore, I reiterate my argument that the actions do not
justify the cause because it was done in unethical manner.

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DISCUSSION ON ETHICS