While conducting research on YouTube’s algorithms, three researchers discovered that YouTube’s recommendations had created a community of sexually suggestive channels. When they shared their findings with The New York Times, YouTube implemented changes, and US lawmakers demanded consequences.
The 'Facebook online social experiment' has caused much controversy. Researchers Cornelius Puschmann and Engin Bozdag review the debate around research ethics and come to the conclusion that "benefits for science should be balanced with possible hazards that may be caused by experiments, rather than precluding that such benefits outweigh the gains".