With over 1.3 billion and a business model that requires Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) to analyze user data, Facebook will forever collect and use this data to meet its needs. However, when the company plays with your Newsfeed in order to study your emotions and then makes that public, there is always going to be a backlash.
If your Newsfeed was anything like mine when the project was announced you undoubtedly saw that a good number of people weren’t particularly happy about it.
How Facebook uses your data?
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) announced Thursday that when, not if, they use this data in will face greater scrutiny internally especially when comes to “deeply personal topics.” But the company also made it clear very clear that no outside group would be brought in to look at how Facebook uses your data and that it would continue to use that data in the future as it can based on its terms of service.
With many jumping over to Ello, at least for a look around, it is a bold announcement from the company that hardly told people what they wanted to hear.
While the emotions study angered many, OKCupid defended Facebook and pointed out that many Internet companies are doing far more manipulative things with their data in order to improve service.
The announcement was made in a blog post by Facebook’s chief technology officer, Mike Shroepfer
Facebook’s Schroepfer says we should have done things differently
In a blog post announcing its new review process, Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s chief technology officer, said the company had “taken to heart the comments and criticism” that came after the emotion paper was published.
“It is clear now that there are things we should have done differently,” he said. “For example, we should have considered other nonexperimental ways to do this research. The research would also have benefited from more extensive review by a wider and more senior group of people. Last, in releasing the study, we failed to communicate clearly why and how we did it.”
Mr. Schroepfer was contacted by numerous news outlets but has declined to be interviewed after the post was published.
Jeffrey T. Hancock, a Cornell University professor who co-wrote the emotion study cheekily commented on the review of the guidelines.
“Will they keep doing those and not publish them? Or does the review panel say we need to think about that?” he said. “They don’t say anything about informed consent or debriefing.”
