W&L Law Review Publishes First-ever Disclosure of Facebook Internal Review Process
Today, Washington and Lee University (W&L) published a piece about a recent study titled “Evolving the IRB: Building Robust Review for Industry Research.” The study was authored by Molly Jackman and Lauri Kanerva of Facebook.
W&L explains:
“According to the authors, companies increasingly conduct research in order to decide what products to build and to improve customers’ experience with those products. But they say that existing ethical guidelines for research do not always completely address the considerations that industry researchers face, and they argue that companies should develop principles and practices that take into account the values set out in law and ethics. In Facebook’s case, this means maintaining a standing committee of five employees, including experts in law, ethics, communications, and policy to vet research proposals and identify ethical concerns.”
