Facebook and researchers at Cornell published a study on "emotional contagion." The study is available here.
Tal Yarkoni's response (Are you serious? Calm down): http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2014/06/28/in-defense-of-facebook/ and his response to the response to his response (Okay, I got some of it wrong): http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2014/07/01/in-defense-of-in-defense-of-facebook/
Mary J's response (Nay): http://ethnographymatters.net/blog/2014/07/07/when-science-customer-service-and-human-subjects-research-collide-now-what/
Michael Bernstein's response (Yay): https://medium.com/@msbernst/the-destructive-silence-of-social-computing-researchers-9155cdff659
Beki Grinter's thoughts (woah): http://beki70.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/that-facebook-study/
James Grimmelmann's thoughts (illegal!): https://medium.com/@JamesGrimmelmann/illegal-unethical-and-mood-altering-8b93af772688 http://james.grimmelmann.net/files/legal/facebook/MDAG.pdf
MSR Faculty Summit Panel (balance): http://socialmediacollective.org/2014/08/19/msr-faculty-summit-2014-ethics-panel-recap/
UX Booth's coverage:
Popular media:
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-user-news-feeds-to-create-emotional-contagion/
- http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/we-experiment-on-human-beings/
- http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/06/facebook_unethical_experiment_it_made_news_feeds_happier_or_sadder_to_manipulate.html
- http://mashable.com/2014/06/29/anger-facebook-emotion-manipulation-study/
- http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/facebook-manipulated-700k-news-feeds-to-study-emotional-contagion-1.1891631
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/11/02/how-to-make-field-experiments-more-ethical/
From the authors: https://www.facebook.com/akramer/posts/10152987150867796
Pro:
- Michael Bernstein
- OK Cupid
- MSR Faculty Summit Panel
Con:
- Mary J
- Beki Grinter
- James Grimmelmann
- MSR Faculty Summit Panel