March 28, 2024

Facebook's Emotional Manipulation Study: When Ethical Worlds Collide

The research community is buzzing about the ethics of Facebook’s now-famous experiment in which it manipulated the emotional content of users’ news feeds to see how that would affect users’ activity on the site. (The paper, by Adam Kramer of Facebook, Jamie Guillory of UCSF, and Jeffrey Hancock of Cornell, appeared in Proceedings of the […]

Ethical dilemmas faced by software engineers: A roundup of responses

Two weeks ago I asked for real-life examples of ethical dilemmas in software engineering. Many of you sent responses by email, twitter, and comments. Thank you for taking the time! Here is a quick summary (in no particular order). Aaron Massey has written a very thoughtful post in response. I encourage you to give it […]

Ethical dilemmas faced by software engineers: A request for real-world examples

Software developers create the architectures that govern our online and often our offline lives — from software-controlled cars and medical systems to digital content consumption and behavioral advertising. In fact, software shapes our societal values. Are the creators of code aware of the power that they wield, and the responsibilities that go with it? As […]