{"id":44193,"date":"2014-07-07T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=44193"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:33:43","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:33:43","slug":"facebook-denies-emotion-contagion-study-had-government-and-military-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/07\/facebook-denies-emotion-contagion-study-had-government-and-military-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Denies Emotion Contagion Study Had Government and Military Ties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers say the study was not funded by Minerva Research Initiative, which engaged scientists in national security issues.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Facebook ’emotion contagion’ study does not have ties with the US DoD’s Minerva Research Initiative, according to Facebook and Cornell.<\/p><\/div>\n

Facebook and Cornell researchers have denied that the controversial \u201cemotion contagion\u201d experiment was funded by the US Department of Defence (DoD).<\/p>\n

The social network told the Guardian that the study was entirely self-funded and that Facebook is categorically not a willing participant in the DoD\u2019s Minerva Research Initiative<\/a>, which funds research into the modelling of dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Prof Hancock, like many researchers, has conducted work funded by the federal government during his career, at no time did Professor Hancock or his postdoctoral associate Jamie Guillory request or receive outside funding to support their work on this PNAS paper,\u201d John Carberry, director of media relations at Cornell University where the academic work took place, told the Guardian.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitial wording in an article and press releases generated by Cornell University that indicated outside funding sources was an unfortunate error missed during the editorial review process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several publications<\/a> alleged<\/a> that because one of the key academic researchers on the study, Professor Jeffrey Hancock at Cornell<\/a>, previously had ties with the Minerva Initiative that the Facebook \u201cemotion contagion\u201d work could have been in service of the US military.<\/p>\n

Determine the tipping point of social contagions<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Minerva initiative was launched in 2008<\/a>, the year of the global banking crisis, and was established to allow the department to partner with universities “to improve DoD’s basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioural, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the US”.<\/p>\n

Cornell University is one of the institutions actively engaged with the Minerva Initiative and currently has a study funded through till 2017 managed by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research which aims to develop an empirical model “of the dynamics of social movement mobilisation and contagions”.<\/p>\n

The project aims to determine “the critical mass (tipping point)” of social contagions by studying their “digital traces” in the cases of “the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cornell denies that the Facebook \u201cemotion contagion\u201d study that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a> was linked with this project.<\/p>\n

At no time did Hancock seek federal funding for this work<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cProf Hancock did submit a research grant proposal to the DoD\u2019s Minerva program in 2008 to study language use in support of US efforts to engage social scientists on national security issues, but that proposal was not funded,\u201d explained Carberry.<\/p>\n

\u201cA similar research project was funded in 2009 by the National Science Foundation. Neither project involved studying emotional contagion or Facebook in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt no time prior to his work on this paper did Prof Hancock seek federal funding for this work, or any work studying emotional contagion on Facebook,\u201d insisted Carberry.<\/p>\n

Other US universities including Washington and Maryland are involved in studies directly funded and commissioned by Minerva and the DoD, while the US military also has its own in-house research institutions conducting further studies and projects.<\/p>\n

Facebook did not want to provide a comment for publication.<\/p>\n

The row over the ethical implications of the Facebook \u201cemotion contagion\u201d study still rumbles on, despite a public apology<\/a> for the \u201cpoorly communicated\u201d study by the social network\u2019s chief operating officer and number two, Sheryl Sandberg.<\/p>\n

Her apology contrasted with comments made on the same day by Facebook\u2019s head of global policy Monika Bickert, who defended the study<\/a> and explained that it was necessary for innovation. She added that legislation which could limit innovation was \u201cconcerning\u201d.<\/p>\n