Grimmelmann Featured in Christian Science Monitor Article About Facebook Research

James Grimmelmann, a visiting professor in UMIACS and a law professor in the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, was recently featured in a Christian Science Monitor article about how Facebook Inc. is planning a stricter review of requests to access information on its users after a psychological experiment on unaware users in 2012 caused an uproar on social media.

In the study, which was conducted on approximately 700,000 users, Facebook experimented with the emotional states of users to prompt them to post either more positive or negative content on their news feeds.

Going forward, there will be a stricter review of requests for research, for internal work or academic purposes, that deals with personal content or specific groups of people, according to the article.

“It’s one thing for a company to conduct experiments to test how well a product works, but Facebook experiments are testing loneliness and family connections, and all sorts of things that are not really directed toward providing their users a better experience,” says Grimmelmann, who also serves as director of the university’s Intellectual Property Program.

Read more here.