Swedish beauty study that sparked ‘storm of criticism’ is cleared

> “I do understand that beauty is a sometimes controversial topic,” Mehic, who is now an assistant professor at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm, told Retraction Watch by email. “However, the subjects have voluntarily decided to share their data online. This data may be used by others for certain purposes, including commercial (social media outlets are well-known to sell data to companies), or research.”

Yes, handsome or beautiful people are given more favours and higher grades for no good reason. Quantifying this effect is not immoral.

> Lund University asked the national Ethics Review Appeals Board to decide whether the study would have needed ethics approval. In February, the board found the personal data collected in the study were not of such sensitive nature as to require such review.

The moral outrage about publicly available information is only telling us how much people are unaware of what the post on the open internet.

So, this is a "storm in a glass of water," a lot of ado about nothing.