Researchers Potentially Skew Vote

Researchers from Dartmouth College and Stanford University crafted official-looking flyers with information about an upcoming election in various states including Montana and sent them to thousands of constituents with the intent of studying the effect of the flyers on the voters. The flyer described two candidates in an upcoming Supreme Court race according to the candidates' political bias even though the candidates were nonpartisan. The flyer had an official state seal and looked like an official voting document; in small print the flyer states that its purpose is for research. Official complaints against the researchers have been filed and they potentially face significant fines if the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices pursues the complaints. Lise Dobrin, a member of UVA's IRB-SBS, commented regarding the ethical implication of the research in Dylan Scott's TPM article.

Manipulating Facebook Users' Newsfeeds: the Ethics of Testing Emotional Contagion

Facebook is the proverbial gold mine for social and behavioral researchers. Individuals spend hours on it each day documenting their lives, their interactions with others, and their interaction with media. The program collects and analyzes the information, providing an interesting glimpse into various aspects of humanity. The ethics of using Facebook and other social media outlets to gather data is more opaque, however. Facebook users generally post information to a closed group of friends with the expectation that their friends will view the information as part of a normal social interaction. Although the information is posted on the web, some would argue that there is an expectation of privacy. If researchers glean information from Facebook posts without permission, it is similar to a researcher recording a conversation without permission, etc. Engaging participants in a study without their knowledge, particularly by manipulating their newsfeeds, is even more egregious. A Facebook data scientist and two other researchers from the University of California and Cornell University conducted a study in 2012 where they attempted to test the response that users would have to reading negative or positive posts on their newsfeed; they manipulated nearly 700,000 users’ newsfeeds and tracked the users’ responses to see if they mirrored the negativity or remained neutral (i.e. “emotional contagion”).  The Facebook users became unwitting participants in a research study without giving permission; in addition to the lack of consent, the participants were manipulated with the intent to influence the individual’s state of being. While an IRB generally approves using manipulation to study participants, there are specific elements that are required to be in place such as the post-consent debriefing that helps the participant to understand the full nature of the study and provides a more complete consent. In a study where the researcher is manipulating emotions and there is the potential to make a participant upset, the debriefing session is particularly important so that the researcher can gauge the mental state of the participant and assess if additional help is needed.

Facebook users don’t exist in a vacuum. Every day their data are used by corporations to manipulate users to buy products or click on certain links. However, the relationship of trust between researchers and participants is a valuable commodity and when it is abused it is costly not only to participants but to researchers as well. Facebook users voiced their opinion about the manipulation and Adam Kramer, the Facebook data scientist who worked on the study, responded by posting this apology: "I can understand why some people have concerns about it, and my coauthors and I are very sorry for the way the paper described the research and any anxiety it caused. In hindsight, the research benefits of the paper may not have justified all of this anxiety."

Syphilis Experiments Shock, But So Do Third World Drug Trials

A few years ago, Wellesley medical researcher Susan Reverby unearthed documents indicating that Dr. John C. Cutler, the doctor who conducted the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis study, also conducted a similar study in Guatemala. Participants were infected with the deadly disease without their consent; 83 participants died over the course of the study. When the information that Dr. Reverby discovered was revealed, it resulted in a former apology by President Obama to the people of Guatemala. While the practices of the Guatemala Syphilis study are shocking, this ABC report highlights that issues still prevail in the developing world where medical research is conducted on the less educated and poor.