How Facebook Stole Your Psychological Profile Article Summary

Apparently, Facebook has been used by social psychologists to collect private information about its users without their informed consent. The article presents a paper published by Cambridge Analytica where ethical, social research was not observed. From the article, a survey organization (Qualtrics used on Facebook by Cambridge Analytica to run an online survey) must begin by stating the rights of the participants such as confidentiality, the right to withdraw from the participation, risks, and merits of involvement, and how the data collected is intended to be used. However, a complete ethical consideration was not implemented in the survey although Facebook users had to opt-in to participate. In the Study under consideration, the Cambridge researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, working for Cambridge Analytica at the time, assumed that data obtained through the participants could be used without concern because Facebook platform overcomes the common research problems of traditional samples.