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In 2012, Facebook Altered Content To Tweak Readers' Emotions
The Atlantic reports that two years ago, Facebook briefly conducted an experiment on a subset of its users, altering the mix of content shown to them to emphasize content sorted by tone, negative or positive, and observe the results. From the Atlantic article: For one week in January 2012, data scientists skewed what almost 700,000 Facebook users saw when they logged into its service. Some people were shown content with a preponderance of happy and positive words; some were shown content analyzed as sadder than average. And when the week was over, these manipulated users were more likely to post either especially positive or negative words themselves.
This tinkering was just revealed as part of a new study, published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many previous studies have used Facebook data to examine “emotional contagion,” as this one did. This study is different because, while other studies have observed Facebook user data, this one set out to manipulate it.
At least they showed their work.
There are laws governing obtaining informed consent from humans before performing psychological experiments on them. I doubt that a EULA can override them. This should be interesting...
This sort of thing is exactly why I have never signed up for an account. The lack of a moral compass at this company is profound.
This is quite interesting research that should never have been done. I am rather surprised that the National Academy published the results of a study which violated multiple ethical guidelines put in place to protect human subjects. Did Facebook track the number of suicides in the 700,000 sample? Was the rate of those given a sadder than average stream have a higher or lower rate? Do the Facebook researchers address the ethical questions posed by performing such an experiment at all?
I see it in my self, on the rare occasions that I actually post, which is roughly 5-10 times a year and I see it with others whenever I go online to browse a little in the posts of the people I'm connected with ... called "Friends" (Fingerquotes!) on FB:
Facebook and other "social networks" encourage posing. No two ways about it.
If you get all worked up and batter your self esteem just because somebody posted himself in cool poses or on some event that you "missed out" on ... I get this a lot, since I'm only on FB for my tango dancing connections, a pastime where posing sometimes actually is part of the game. Actually knowing the person behind a neat facade on FB does put things into perspective.
Bottom line:
People shouldn't get more attached to these things than it is good for them. If this neat little stund by FB shows them that, then all the better.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
What actually disturbs me more is: why should they do this? The answer is simple: They want to determine the most effective non-obvious way of creating filter bubbles to make the user feel well and stay longer.
It is so-to say a "second order filter bubble", i.e. the use of a positive feedback mechanism.
It's called the Common Rule, although it generally only applies to federally funded research. There is some evidence that this study was in part federally funded. I think there are serious questions about whether a click-through agreement meets the standards of informed consent.
Although the study was approved by an institutional review board, I'm surprised, and the comment from the Princeton editor makes me wonder how well they understood the research design (or how clearly it was explained to them). This would never have gotten past my IRB.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Most of this 'free' software has a "do you accept the terms and conditions" clause that you have to click "I agree" in order to install or run the software.
Now the enforcability of such agreements may be open to dispute, especcially if it entailled some sacrifice on the users part (you agree to give up your firstborn child to us..) but it usually would cover "we can change the user interface at any time, and don't complain if memory leaks cause your system to crash eventually)
... our stock is very happy ... buy our stock ... you like using Facebook ... you are happy when you use FaceBook ... buy our stock ...
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
Hey, Facebook! Can you help me with some experiments of my own? I'd like to see the outcome if...
1. Right before an election, all posts favoring candidate X or the political views of party X were promoted to the top of everyone's feed and given 20 extra fake "Likes", while posts favoring the opposition are demoted and de-liked.
2. Phrases in posts favoring candidate X or the political views of party X are subtly "edited" when the appear in everyone else's news feed to be more positive (e.g., "like" to "love", "good" to "great"), while phrases in posts favoring the opposition are given the reverse treatment and sprinkled with misspellings.
3. FB users with a tendency of opposition to party X have random fake posts/comments from them appear in other's feeds only, in which they insult their friends' baby pictures, make tasteless jokes, and vaguely threaten supporters of party X to "unfriend me if ur so lame u can't take the TRUTH, lol".
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Correction: An earlier version of this story reported that the study was funded in part by the James S. McDonnell Foundation and the Army Research Office. In fact, the study received no external funding.