Facebook’s approach of trying to manipulate its users’ news feeds to study how human emotions are swayed through social network posts raise serious ethical questions.
According to Milton Friedman, Facebook is breaking the social responsibility code by not conforming to the basic rules of society embodied in law. (http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ubc/reader.action?docID=10187339&page=171). It violated the Code of Federal Regulations by not requesting informed consent from its users before conducting research on and performing changes in psychological status, which falls under the unethical experimentation involving human subjects. Contrary to Freeman’s stakeholder theory of successful businesses that create value for all of its stakeholders, (https://www.youtube.com/embed/bIRUaLcvPe8) Facebook is considered as a business in decline that has lost its edge with its customers by violating human rights and the moral ethics code. I think it goes without saying that before manipulating what one’s exposed to on Facebook for testing/research, Facebook should have provided a consent form for its users to sign, and change only the news feeds of those that did provide consent.
In conclusion, it is important and ethical for any social media site to ask for its users’ permission before manipulating what its users are exposed to.
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