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Data Scientists Want Big Data Ethics Standards

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Category: Blog

Created on Friday, 19 September 2014 09:56

Nearly half of data scientists surveyed last month say Facebook's controversial "mood manipulation study" was unethical, and many support ethics guidelines for big data research.

The vast majority of statisticians and data scientists believe that consumers should worry about privacy issues related to data being collected on them, and most have qualms about the questionable ethics behind Facebook's undisclosed psychological experiment on its users in 2012.

Those are just two of the findings from a Revolution Analytics survey of 144 data scientists at JSM (Joint Statistical Meetings) 2014, an annual gathering of statisticians, to gauge their thoughts on big data ethics. The Boston conference ran Aug. 2-7.

The survey results show data scientists are largely a principled bunch concerned over the lack of ethical guidelines for big data research, at least in some industries.

The Facebook study is a case in point. In January 2012, the social network placed positive or negative posts and images in nearly 700,000 of its users' news feeds to gauge whether the information would sway people's emotions. The Facebook users were unaware they were subjects in the study.

The full article by Jeff Bertolucci on the Information Week