Comment by qPM9l3XJrF

Yes, and people generally don't seem upset by viral Youtube social experiments. The Nuremberg code may be the status quo and nothing more. No one here is trying to justify the code on its merits, just blindly quoting it as an authority.

Here's another idea: If it's ethical to do it in a non-experimental context, it's also ethical to do it in an experimental context. So if it's OK to walk up to a stranger and ask them a weird question, it's also OK to do it in the context of a Youtube social experiment. Anything other than this is blatantly anti-scientific IMO.

It is IRBs that need reform. They're self-justifying bureaucratic cruft: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/