{"id":29079,"date":"2014-07-02T08:18:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T08:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=29079"},"modified":"2014-07-02T08:18:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-02T08:18:20","slug":"facebook-faces-uk-probe-over-emotion-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/07\/facebook-faces-uk-probe-over-emotion-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook faces UK probe over emotion study"},"content":{"rendered":"
A UK regulator is investigating whether Facebook broke data protection laws when it conducted a psychological study on users without their consent.<\/p>\n
The test saw Facebook “manipulate” the news feeds of nearly 700,000 users to control which emotional expressions they were exposed to.<\/p>\n
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it planned to question Facebook over the study.<\/p>\n
Facebook said it had taken “appropriate protections for people’s information”.<\/p>\n
“We are happy to answer any questions regulators may have,” Facebook’s Richard Allen said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The Financial Times<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Register<\/a>\u00a0quoted the ICO as saying that it would contact Ireland’s data protection regulator over the issue.<\/p>\n Facebook’s European headquarters are based in Dublin.<\/p>\n Emotion test<\/strong><\/p>\n The research was conducted in collaboration with Cornell University and the University of California at San Francisco on 689,000 Facebook users over a period of one week in 2012.<\/p>\n