Informed Consent vs. Terms of Service

When scientific research involves humans as test subjects, it is the researcher's job to guard the welfare of the test subjects. One of the basic ways of doing this is by asking every human test subject to read and sign an informed consent prior to experimentation.

For this week's discussion, please:

1) Familiarize yourself with Informed Consent via this primer from the University of North Carolina - Charlotte. NOTE: You don't need to memorize this web page! But you will need this information to understand the violation described in the second and third readings...

2) Facebook conducted a social science research experiment on its users. While all users complete a Terms of Service agreement to use FB, FB didn't collected explicit informed consent from its users/human test subjects. Please read these two articles:

a) Facebook study sparks soul searching and ethical questions. from The Wall Street Journal

b) The journal that published Facebooks psychological study is raising a red flag about it. from The Washington Post

3) Post your response to these three readings. Your response should be at least 100 words long and demonstrate to me that you completed all three readings. Some ideas to get you started with your response: Highlight flaws in the reasoning provided in the readings, note shortcomings, provide alternate explanations, or future directions from the weeks materials. Your response can integrate the weeks topic into current events, historical events, or topics you have encountered in other classes. What are the implications and concerns raised by the discussion readings? How does this apply to your own life? How does this effect the lives of the people around you? If you had a strong reaction to the topic (positive or negative), describe your reaction, and expand upon it as to turn it into a discussion prompt and invite input from your peers. (Dont limit yourself to this list! These are just some ideas to get you thinking.)