- Griffin A., ‘Facebook manipulated users’ moods in secret
experiment’, The Independent, 29 June 2014; Arthur C.,
‘Facebook emotion study breached ethical guidelines,
researchers say’, The Guardian, 30 June 2014. - Examples: Raine R. et al., ‘A national cluster-randomised
controlled trial to examine the effect of enhanced reminders on
the socioeconomic gradient in uptake in bowel cancer screening’,
British Journal of Cancer, 2016; Kitchener H.C. et al., ‘A cluster
randomised trial of strategies to increase cervical screening
uptake at first invitation (STRATEGIC)’, Health Technology
Assessment, 2016. It’s worth noting that despite their widespread
use, the concept of randomised experiments (often called ‘A/B
tests’) seems to make many people uncomfortable – even if the
individual options are innocuous and the study is ethically
designed. One 2019 study found that ‘people frequently rate A/B
tests designed to establish the comparative effectiveness of two
policies or treatments as inappropriate even when universally
implementing either A or B, untested, is seen as appropriate’.
Source: Meyer M.N. et al., ‘Objecting to experiments that
compare two unobjectionable policies or treatments’, PNAS,
2019. - Berger J. and Milkman K.L., ‘What Makes online Content
Viral?’, Journal of Marketing Research, 2011. - Heath C. et al., ‘Emotional selection in memes: the case of
urban legends’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
2001. - Tufekci Z., ‘YouTube, the Great Radicalizer’, New York Times,
10 March 2018. - Baquero F. et al., ‘Ecology and evolution of antibiotic
resistance’, Environmental Microbiology Reports, 2009. - Background from: De Domenico M. et al., ‘The Anatomy of a
Scientific Rumor’, Scientific Reports, 2013.
greg delong
(Greg DeLong)
#1