OkCupid Data Scientist: "I'm Not Playing God"

After readily admitting to conducting experiments on OkCupid users, Christian Rudder defends Facebook’s study and tech company data scientists.

media.giphy.com / Via Giphy

Earlier this summer, Facebook's data science team came under intense scrutiny after publishing a study in an academic journal that revealed they had knowingly served up different content in 600,000-plus users' News Feeds for a psychological experiment focused on users' emotional states.

Today, in his first blog post in years, OkCupid co-founder and data scientist Christian Rudder posted a tongue-in-cheek response to the Facebook study backlash titled, "We Experiment On Human Beings!" The post documents some of the dating site's algorithmic experiments, including one where OkCupid intentionally deceived users on the quality of their matches. According to the post:

We took pairs of bad matches (actual 30% match) and told them they were exceptionally good for each other (displaying a 90% match.)† Not surprisingly, the users sent more first messages when we said they were compatible. After all, that's what the site teaches you to do.

But we took the analysis one step deeper. We asked: does the displayed match percentage cause more than just that first message—does the mere suggestion cause people to actually like each other? As far as we can measure, yes, it does.

When we tell people they are a good match, they act as if they are. Even when they should be wrong for each other

The post is a bit sardonic and overtly casual about the idea of a company experiementing with user data and algorithms. Early on, Rudder argues, "guess what, everybody: if you use the Internet, you're the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That's how websites work."

Shortly after the post went live Rudder, who just finished a book on tech company data science, told BuzzFeed he understands criticism of the Facebook study but that this sort of experimentation is part of the fabric of nearly every media and tech company. " I understand a lot of the issues and why the anger is there. It's confusing. But people also need to understand that every website, every part of modern web development — nobody launches a redesign without testing on different users. It's just not unusual at all and I can't remember a time we launched a significant feature and didn't test it on 10, 20, or 30 percent of users."

For some, especially those in academic spheres, Rudder's post served as another reminder of the glaring disconnect between those at the helm of these enormous stockpiles of data and the expectations their users. At stake in this criticism is the issue of ignoring ethical considerations simply because that's the cost of doing business in the 'era of big data.'

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