After getting caught red-handed experimenting with news feeds in order to affect users' emotions, Facebook has come out with an official apology.
During a visit to New Delhi, India, Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg apologized, saying that the company had communicated poorly on the experiment, the USA Today reports.
This latest statement from Sandberg is a reaction to the recent news uncovering a Facebook experiment from 2012, which artificially tweaked the news feeds of 689,003 users. The social network ran an experiment for one week to see how showing more depressing or more positive stories would affect the user's own status updates as well as posts.
"This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was; it was poorly communicated," said Sandberg.
'Sowie'
Facebook isn't just feeling the backlash from its community of users. Authorities from around the world – including the British data protection authorities, Ireland, and France - are currently investigating the legality of the experiment.
In response to the investigation, Times of India reports Sandberg also explained Facebook is working closely with regulators around the world.
"[W]e are fully in compliance [with regulations]," the Facebook COO expounded. "We know this because we have these dialogues and we have felt very confident there."
"We take privacy very seriously. It is the hallmark of our service, it is the underpinning of our service," she added.
Sure it is.
