[betterunix]

Quite a few conferences now require that experiments involved human subjects be reviewed by an ethics committee of some kind before being carried out. Universities have such committees and they do oversee themselves pretty effectively.

So no, I do not think that Facebook overseeing its own researchers is so far fetched. The ethical review board would probably consist of a combination of lawyers, PR people, and people with research backgrounds. The lawyers and PR folks would not have seen this experiment as a "great opportunity for research that was previously impossible" so much as "lawsuit bait" and "PR nightmare."

[zachrose]

That's a good point. It is possible for a panel of professionals to qualify and limit the kinds of work are ethical. That's what ethics are! Accountants, lawyers, and doctors are all good at that.

The critical difference, in my mind, is that academic research takes place more or less in the public sphere. Even when it's not, an academic can always be counted on to challenge and discredit a fellow academic.

An in-house council of research practice could exist, but it would take a group of professors with reputations on the line. And then again, to my main point, Facebook's central business practices revolve around manipulating users in ways that are even _less_ concerned about the user's well-being.