More likely than not, encoded in Facebook’s database is some new, milder DSM, with categories like the slightly stingy (who need to be induced to buy more); the profligate, who need frugality prompts; the creepy, who need to be hidden in newsfeeds lest they bum out the cool. Our new “Science Mart” creates these new human kinds, but also alters them, as “new sorting and theorizing induces changes in self-conception and in behavior of the people classified.” Perhaps in the future, upon being classified as “slightly depressed” by Facebook, users will see more happy posts. Perhaps the hypomanic will be brought down a bit. Or, perhaps if their state is better for business, it will be cultivated and promoted.
You may think that last possibility unfair, or a mischaracterization of the power of Facebook. But shouldn’t children have been excluded from its emotion experiment? Shouldn’t those whom it suspects may be clinically depressed? Shouldn’t some independent reviewer have asked about those possibilities? Journalists try to reassure us that Facebook is better now than it was two years ago. But the power imbalances in social science remain as funding cuts threaten researchers’ autonomy. Until research in general is properly valued, we can expect more psychologists, anthropologists, and data scientists to attune themselves to corporate research agendas, rather than questioning why data about users is so much more available than data about company practices.