As described by Simpson, Neville and Burmeister (2003) the Doing Ethics Technique (DET) is and easy to follow process that helps achieve an appropriate outcome. The DET technique has been used on a newspaper article by Booth (2014). This article can be view at the following link http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds. .
What's going on? What are the facts?.
During a period of time during 2012, Facebook and academics from Cornell and the University of California, conducted a psychology experiment on 689,000 users. This experiment was conducted without the knowledge or consent of the users involved. Critics have argued that Facebook may have breached ethical and legal guidelines by not informing its users and gaining consent. Facebook counter this claim by stating that part of the data use policy the user agree to prior to creating an account amounts to consent for this research. The tests conducted under this experiment manipulated the user's news feed to control what posts they were shown. Through a process call "emotional contagion" the study demonstrated that it was possible to influence user's behaviour. Facebook claims that the research was undertaken to improve services, and to understand how people respond to the types of content that they follow. However various commentators have expressed concern over the experiment and the possibility of it being used maliciously for political or financial gain.
What are the ethical & non-ethical issues?.
Within the article there are multiple issues identified these have been listed below.
• Those participating in research did so without knowledge or consent.
• Acceptability for a social media site to manipulate someone's thoughts and emotions .
• Facebook and its partners may have breached legal guidelines.
• How were the 689,000 subjects for the experiment chosen.
• There is the possibility for vulnerable people being selected for the study which may have led to adverse.