Make sure the research isn’t harmful

Even if you're confident your study won't harm its participants, you should always consider the hidden, indirect harm it can cause, such as manipulating users' emotional states or behavior.

In 2012, Facebook altered the news feeds of 689,000 users for a week, showing them happier or sadder than average content. The study findings revealed that people who saw happier content posted more positive words on their feed. Conversely, users who saw sadder content posted more negative words than usual. While the goal was to improve Facebook services and provide more relevant and engaging content to people, the selected method was unethical. Instead of just observing user data, Facebook manipulated users' feelings like they were lab rats. What’s worse, the company’s data-use policy didn’t mention the word “research” even once when the experiment was conducted. This means users never agreed to participate in Facebook’s studies.^[1]

This example demonstrates how the negligence of research ethics may hurt users' feelings and affect your company's name. For a much smaller company than Facebook, manipulating users' data during a study can have disastrous consequences.