Facebook on Thursday announced it had developed a framework for conducting research on its 1.3 billion or so users.
Although Facebook so far has revealed only the general outlines, this framework clearly is a response to the onslaught of criticism the company received this summer, when it blithely reported the findings of a study about how News Feed content affected a user's mood.
In carrying out that research, Facebook withheld certain posts and promoted others to see how users would react.
When its methodology became public, reactions were immediate and harsh.
"While all businesses of this scale constantly experiment with the factors that influence their customers and users, there's something especially spooky about the idea of being experimented on in our digital lives," said Will McInnes, CMO of Brandwatch.
Facebook apparently was caught off guard by the vitriol.
A Look at the Framework
The new framework includes giving researchers clearer guidelines and, in certain cases -- such as when dealing with content that might be considered deeply personal -- putting the project through an enhanced review process before the research begins.
Further review is required if the work involves collaboration with someone in the academic community.
Toward that end, Facebook has created a panel comprised of its most senior subject-area researchers, along with people from its engineering, research, legal, privacy and policy teams to review projects.
Facebook also will put its new engineers through a six-week training boot camp on privacy and research related issues
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