Facebook experiment illustrates need for online users’ Bill of Rights

CREEPY doesn’t begin to describe Facebook’s 2012 psychological experiment on 700,000 of its unwitting users. Any attempt to manipulate the emotional state of consumers is unconscionable. It reflects poorly on the entire tech community, confirming privacy activists’ worst fears.

This public relations disaster, coming on the heels of the NSA spying revelations, reasserts the pressing need for Silicon Valley to produce an online users’ bill of rights. The alternative is an inevitable downward spiral of confidence in tech companies and their products. Could government regulation be far behind?