What you're describing also sounds like an effective psychological weapon. It depends on the application but I can imagine (not condone, but imagine) this being mandatory for, say, felony offenders in a prison setting. You've got nothing to do but sit in a cell awash in a cold tide of human suffering.

Especially if this technology becomes advanced to the point that you don't need the network directly, and you can just in essence record someone's emotional state then broadcast it. Instant purgatory.

Then again, if you can feel someone else's pain, presumably you can feel their pleasure too...

Imagine how addictive it will be when they can experience the intense emotions of a person being tortured or killed, without any danger to one's self.

There is always another side. I remember seeing this sort of voyeurism explored in Tad Williams' Otherland series.