Facebook is currently being investigated by a UK regulator, after it was revealed that the social networking site had performed a psychological study on its users without their consent.
The study, which took place during one week in 2012, saw Facebook tailoring the news feeds of 689,000 of its users with either an abundance of positive or negative posts, in order to see whether or not this would affect the status updates of the subjects of the study. It concluded that those who saw more negative posts on their news feed were more likely to write negative status updates, and vice versa.
However, without informing the users that they were taking part in a psychological study, Facebook has been accused of breaching trust and is now being investigated by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Responding to the criticisms it has faced over the study, Facebook’s Richard Allen said: “It’s clear that people were upset by this study and we take responsibility for it. We want to do better in the future and are improving our process based on this feedback.”
Facebook has also confirmed that the study didn’t involve “any unnecessary collection” of people’s data.
