The only thing they didn’t do was collect the data themselves.ĭoes that exclude their institution from making sure that they behave ethically? Or does it really just constitute a run around any ethics regulation? International concern from regulatorsĪ further regulatory question is whether this research needed to be approved in other jurisdictions such as the UK, Ireland and Australia. In this case the academics were involved in the study design and the analysis afterwards. This is a matter of interpretation – when is someone involved in human research? Their work was limited to initial discussions, analysing the research results and working with colleagues from Facebook to prepare the peer-reviewed paper īecause the research was conducted independently by Facebook and Professor Hancock had access only to results – and not to any individual, identifiable data at any time – Cornell University’s Institutional Review Board concluded that he was not directly engaged in human research This is reinforced by the statement from Cornell, which says that its researchers – Professor Jeffrey Hancock and then doctoral student Jamie Guillory – did not participate in data collection and did not have access to user data. as a private company Facebook was under no obligation to conform to the provisions of the Common Rule when it collected the data used by the authors. The editor-in-chief’s argument is that because this experiment was conducted by Facebook for internal purposes, the university’s Institutional Review Board determined that the project “didn’t fall under Cornell’s Human Research Protection Program”. Ethics approval or notīut is the journal correct to think that the experiment – carried out by researchers from both Facebook and Cornell University – didn’t need research ethics committee approval? So rather than mere consent, as I termed it in my earlier piece, we would be better to describe this study as having no consent at all. While the paper presents a façade of informed consent by agreement to Facebook’s Data Use Policy, we have now found out – thanks to Forbes – that the clauses regarding research were only added to this policy four months after the experiment took place. In regards to informed consent in the Facebook study, which the Expression of Concern acknowledges is problematic, there are now larger problems. This rule requires oversight by a research ethics committee and adherence with common practices regarding informed consent only if a study receives federal funding or is associated with an institution receiving federal funding. But Verma argues that the paper was consistent with Facebook’s policies at the time, and with the regulatory framework within the United States, known as the Common Rule.
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