This was brought up around the time of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Essentially it's a great experiment for showing that most people who say "I'd never do that" can actually be total monsters in the right circumstance.
Basically this is the kid-version of the Zimbardo prison experiment which is without doubt one of the most fascinating psychology experiments ever done (imo).
In terms of today, you couldn't even do anything remotely similar to the kid study (even with adults). Ethical standards are in place to make sure the fun/damaging stuff can't happen anymore. Once you get into organizing your own psychology experiments in a university setting it's incredible the hoops you're required to jump through to make sure nobody is even offended, let alone harmed.
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