Re: Misinformation from an uniformed individual
There is no "business version" of informed consent. That is complete nonsense. Many of the unwilling participants were underage children who are legally incapable of giving informed consent in any fashion. The informed consent that FB is claiming is for "internal operations" use only, not experimental academic research.
The results will likely be: 1) Adam DI Kramer will be fired from FB. The lawyers have already added after-the-fact language to the TOS giving permission for academic research, but even this will not hold legal water. 2) The four low-level researchers will be fired and their careers essentially terminated for ethics violations. They also face jail time for lying to the IRB's about the funding and nature of the "research." 3) Cornell, UCSF, UCSD and Yale will likely be hit with research sanctions ranging from requirements for increased IRB scrutiny to IRB training to limits on research similar to football recruiting sanctions. 4) There could possibly be repercussions from the illegal use of federal and state tobacco settlement money. 5) There will likely be serious repercussions in Europe from the use of non-consenting underage experimental research subjects. Huge (multi-billion dollar) fines are a likely result.
Mostly these things happen behind closed doors, but academic has ways of punishing people who violate moral, legal or ethical rules and laws. Bad things are going to happen to a lot of peoples' careers.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
