this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Are they legally allowed to just do that? Just shadow ban certain users temporarily for an 'experiment'?
If so... Why is that legally allowed??
Consider who "owns" Reddit. It's not a public service/utility. It turns out people can do what they want with things they own.
*save for lots of exceptions based on your wealth tier...
Why on earth would it be illegal? What possible law could have been broken? You don't have a "right" to visit reddit with a mobile browser. They have the right to restrict access as they see fit.
A lot of this sort of A/B testing has the character of a psychology experiment. If it were conducted by a reputable research lab, it would have to pass an instituational review board who would weigh in on whether it was an ethical experiment, and among other things research subjects would always have the right to decline to participate in the experiment.
But when private companies do it, nobody holds them to the same standard of ethics in their human experimentation. But clearly people's right not to be subject to psychological experiments without their consent is being violated.
A/B testing always happens in software
I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not...
No I really mean it. That's not a right that's, like, in the Constitution, but it's a principle of academic psychology and tech companies trample all over it. If it's just, like, which button design is better or what CDN makes the page load faster, it's mostly fine, but when they start asking questions like "what happens if we only show people the sad posts", it's really not fine.
Why would it be illegal? It's shitty and it's obvious what they're trying to do, but I can't fathom what law from any jurisdiction this would violate.