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Facebook Fallout, Facts and Frenzy
redletterdave (2493036) writes Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said the company's experiment designed to purposefully manipulate the emotions of its users was communicated "poorly". Sandberg's public comments, which were the first from any Facebook executive following the discovery of the one-week psychological study, were made while attending a meeting with small businesses in India that advertise on Facebook. "This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was," Sandberg said. "It was poorly communicated. And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you." anavictoriasaavedra points out this article that questions how much of this outrage over an old press release is justified and what's lead to the media frenzy. Sometimes editors at media outlets get a little panicked when there's a big story swirling around and they haven't done anything with it. It all started as a largely ignored paper about the number of positive and negative words people use in Facebook posts. Now it's a major scandal. The New York Times connected the Facebook experiment to suicides. The story was headlined, Should Facebook Manipulate Users, and it rests on the questionable assumption that such manipulation has happened. Stories that ran over the weekend raised serious questions about the lack of informed consent used in the experiment, which was done by researchers at Cornell and Facebook and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But to say Facebook’s slight alteration of news feeds caused people to suffer depression seems to be unsupported by any kind of data or logic.
How often does any company make a decision which purpose is to upset customers (or users in this case).... Really?
Did microsoft change to Metro UI to upset people? Propably not, but that was the case.
I guess my reaction to this was that if they do this kind of research, what kind of capabilities they actually do have? Maybe they COULD push someone to suicide by adjusting their feeds.
We're sorry.... ...that we got caught.
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Just another day in Paradise
Facebook Experiments Had Few Limits"Thousands of Facebook Inc. users received an unsettling message two years ago: They were being locked out of the social network because Facebook believed they were robots or using fake names. To get back in, the users had to prove they were real. In fact, Facebook knew most of the users were legitimate. The message was a test designed to help improve Facebook's antifraud measures...'There's no review process, per se,' said Andrew Ledvina, a Facebook data scientist from February 2012 to July 2013. 'Anyone on that team could run a test," Mr. Ledvina said. "They're always trying to alter peoples' behavior.'...The recent ruckus is 'a glimpse into a wide-ranging practice,' said Kate Crawford, a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Civic Media and a principal researcher at Microsoft Research. Companies 'really do see users as a willing experimental test bed' to be used at the companies' discretion."
This is the big issue in my mind. If they just randomly selected 40,000 people then they may have inadvertently caused someone already at risk for suicide to be exposed to additionally negative material.
Seriously? Please keep your racist comments to yourself asshole.
Now if you want to bitch about what they did (as I've already done), that's perfectly fine, but this has zip to do with Zionism.
Just another day in Paradise
The experiment was fine, you just don't get it. We shouldn't have told you idiots about it.
Oh those poor media outlet editors, panicking about missing the next big story. Surely their fragile egos should not be sacrificed to such banalities as truth and common sense?
Instead, we should allow them to play games of telephone with facts, because that way no one's feelings (advertising revenue) get hurt.
You get what you pay for.
a positive note dropped here, a plea for help ignored there, and suddenly you don't have an overpopulation problem anymore..
This should never have made it through the ethics board.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Get rid of your account. Be free.
No one outside of the "twitterati" cares about this. "designed to purposefully manipulate the emotions of its users"? Huh, sounds like advertising as so many others have pointed out.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
. . . yes, sometime companies, do you, their customer . . . or in the case of Facebook, their product.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
According to the study, two parallel experiments were conducted, one where positive comments were reduced and one where negative comments were reduced. They weren't exposing them to any additional "negative material".
No beer and no TV make Homer something something
I dislike fb as any other reasonable person and I have unused account to block other users with the same name but if a slight change in stream of ads has such an enormous impact as to cause somebody to end his/her life then such person was instable anyway and as sad as it may seem would have reacted to other sad or as in this case negative stimuli in a way that for the rest of us may be not to understand. FB did wrong by not searching users consent - that is/was doable without endangering the results of the study - that is wrong. Too much compassion for people committing suicide I do not have or at least not because they have been manipulated. We all are in some way if we take this measure or manipulation. Still FB should apologize and Zuckerberg should be castrated.
"the questionable assumption that such manipulation has happened"
They literally wrote a peer-reviewed scientific paper demonstrating that they manipulated people's moods to a statistically significant degree, I don't think there's much you can call questionable about it from Facebook's perspective.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
What's to say they won't alter everyone's facebook feed to make us all feel good about the next war for our "number one ally"?
Ah... the apology that puts blame on the victim. A hall mark of abusers and sociopath's everywhere.
Now everyone would of notice that they are only apologising for the mis-communication, not the act of physiological experimentation (as if we would be OK with it if they had told us). But it goes deeper...
Notice that they put the action and apology in two difference sentences, followed quickly by a "We never meant to upset you." Putting the emotional blame back on us. As if we were just accidentally bumped bystanders, not the actual targets of the actions.
And never ever use the word "Sorry". Only the big weasel phrase "we appologise". This apology goes right along with the classic phoney apologies...
I'm sorry you that you got upset.
I'm sorry that you feel that way.
I'm sorry that you made me do that.
Human experimentation without review board approval and informed consent violates a number of national and international laws. It doesn't matter whether anyone gets hurt.
How (why?) is anti-Zionism racism?
I haven't seen a human subject review or impact statement mentioned in any of these /. articles. Did Facebook even do one before proceeding with this research? If so was it reviewed by an ethics panel before they proceeded with the experiment? If not, then they should definitely be held responsible for any negative outcomes.
And? If a news show notices that it gets better viewing figures when shows are more negative and thus changes shows to be more negative that could have a worse effect. If google changes the pagerank algorithm in a way that makes negative sites score more highly (even if it is inadvertant) then it could have a far bigger effect.
People are getting their noses bent out of shape because Facebook talked about this as a psychological experiment rather than testing a system change; what they did was no worse than what thousands of companies do every day, and considerably better than what thousands of other companies do every day (those who prey on peoples insecurity to drive sales).
Cry me a river
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
Maybe refering to the title of the post?
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
FIFY
Facebook has no compact with its users to offer fair and balanced news (if you'll forgive the expression). They are not obligated to feature any particular array of stories to anybody; in fact, we've heard over and over again how the relevance of items that appear in the news feed is skewed and unpredictable. Nobody should be relying on them for news and I don't think we should expect any more journalistic integrity from them than Buzzfeed.
I don't usually take this angle when it comes to corporate responsibility to the public, but in this case I think people are getting too close to Facebook, when Facebook really just wants to be friends. Or perhaps researcher & test subject.
My question is why is there particular outrage when they do it as part of a science experiment whereas it is widely acceptable to do the exact same thing in mass media to get revenue.
National and local news programs basically live and breath this sort of thing constantly. They schedule their reporting and editorialize in ways to boost viewership: stirring up anger, soothing with feelgood stories, teasing with ominous advertisements, all according to presumptions about the right way to maximize viewer attention and dedication. 'What everyday item in your house could be killing you right now, find out at 11'.
I don't have a Facebook account precisely because I don't like this sort of thing, but I think it's only fair to acknowledge this dubious manipulative behavior is ubiquitous in our media, not just as science experiments in Facebook.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Facebook's efforts to manipulate the feed are really disappointing. If they'll do it for jollies, then they'll damn sure do it if someone pays them to or if the government orders them to.
Imagine an 'American Spring'. Imagine the government not only spying on Facebook users communicating about it, but requiring that Facebook actively suppress any positive comments about it.
That shit ain't right.
It wasn't communicated at all, and Facebook failed to obtain informed consent from subjects of a psychological experiment.
But, let's look at the bright side. Though they violated many federal laws, nobody is going to get in trouble for it, so it's no big deal. The 4 test subjects who committed suicide as a result of the experiment don't need justice, anyway.
Sandberg called herself a "jewish mother figure for young silicon valley CEOs" or some such shit in her book. Is it racist to call a jewish mother a jewish mother? What should we call them instead?
How was this paper "largely ignored"? It was published two weeks ago, and the outrage started immediately.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
So they are still not truthful about this. How can you disclose anything about such a experiment as triggering emotions and disclose your doing this? This to me is just another impulse buying test to see what emotions garner the most response. Marketing is all about impulses and emotions. Apple is all about instilling a emotional response to their products and to the company. The more successful you are at manipulating people's emotions. The better you can provide targeted ads to those that respond to those emotions. People need to understand that the users of Facebook provide a "fee" group of people to experiment on and gather information from. You hardly can complain about what Facebook does because you have a option of simply not participating as a user in Facebook. I myself reached a point a year ago that Facebook was no friend on mine and that being truthful to its users was not in Facebook's values. The people at Facebook think if your willing to share your personal life on a web based social network. Then you are willing to do just about anything, and you really do not value much in privacy.
I find it ironic how the same people who never read EULA or privacy disclosures cry wolf when it becomes a news item.
"Jewish Mom" and "Jew Mom" are two totally different classes of speech, and you know it. Both legal, but one is merely descriptive while the other is offensive. Try "Japanese Mom" and "Jap Mom" on for size if you don't understand it yet.
People are controlling your mind all the time. Every time you see an ad, someone is trying to control your mind to try to convince you buy something. Every time you read an article in a paper, someone controls your mind to try to get their point across. Every time you argue with someone she is trying to control your mind by getting her point across. Etc.
Get off your high horse, use your brain.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Your responses are being measured. FUCK YOU FACEBOOK. and related things just just makes them more powerful.
"Dear customers. We are really sorry that you're so upset at our great study. We're super glad that we did the study but so very very sorry that you guys were upset by it. When we do it again, let's work together to find a way that you could just not be so upset about it."
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
As has been pointed out many times, Facebook was doing their usual sort of product testing. They actively optimize the user experience to keep people using their product (and, more importantly, clicking ads). The only difference between this time and all the other times was that they published their results. This was a good thing, because it introduced new and interesting scientific knowledge.
Because of this debacle, Facebook (and just about every other company) will never again make the mistake of sharing new knowledge with the scientific community. This is truly a dark day for science.
Ferengi rule of aquisition #285: No good deed ever goes unpunished.
Those who are into Facebook (meaning that they get convulsions if they don't check their Facebook page several times a day, and those who upload every single insignificant detail of their pathetic lives to Facebook) either are too stupid to notice it, or they just don't care.
You're right - but what those thousands of other companies have done before are directly responsible for the shit-hole 'murica has become. FB just has a MUCH bigger audience, so I would say the outrage here is justified.
No, that's still racist. And people do bat eyes and call people racists for that.
Saying that Jews control the media: also racist. And stupid as hell.
"This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was," Sandberg said. "It was poorly communicated. And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you."
This is identical to saying "I don't know what we did that upset you but whatever it was I apologize". They don't get it. It basically means that they are going to continue treating their users as insects to be experimented upon and lack the moral compass to understand why what they did was wrong. The fact that they ran an experiment is fine in principle but HOW you do it matters. We insist that academic researchers run their psychology experiments by a review board and when necessary get informed consent. It's not a hard thing to do and we do it for very good reasons. Facebook has not presented any plausible reason we should hold them to a different standard.
I'm very glad I do not have a facebook account and at this point I doubt I ever will. This is simply not a company I care to be involved with any closer than I have to be.
Except that the purpose of this experiment was to play with emotions of their users. And upset was one of the expected results.
Worse: The study has military sponsorship, part of ongoing experiments how to manipulate/prevent/encourage spread of ideas (like voting for an unapproved political parties or mute general discontent):
"research was connected to a Department of Defense project called the Minerva Initiative, which funds universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world."
The end game explain in this very long but very insightful analysis: America’s Real Foreign Policy – A Corporate Protection Racket.
Nah.... Jews are just better than most at technology....
From the Jew Wiki
Technology[edit]
Beny Alagem, Israeli-American founder of Packard Bell[48]
Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft[49]
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Inc.[50]
Michael Dell, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Dell[51]
Lawrence Ellison, Founder of Oracle Corporation[52]
Larry Page, CEO and co-founder of Google Inc[53][54]
Philippe Kahn, creator of the Camera Phone, Founder of Fullpower, Borland[55]
Benjamin M. Rosen, founding investor and former Chairman and CEO of Compaq[56]
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook[57]
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook[58]
... then don't keep changing the news feed to "Top Stories" which nobody gives a shit about.
Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison
Some Random UI Hacker
That's a fact though. Look at the list of owners and CEOs from the most powerful media companies and you'll see mostly names ending in Berg or Stein. The Jewish lobby in America is extremely powerful, and that's why Americans never see the other side of what's going on in the middle east (Israel stealing land left and right) It's apartheid out there, and no one is doing anything to stop it (America and its Jewish lobby keep spending more and more money to bring the promised land back to the Jews at the expense of the Palestinians)
to say Facebookâ(TM)s slight alteration of news feeds caused people to suffer depression seems to be unsupported by any kind of data or logic
That's exactly what the tobacco industry said about health damage due to cigarette smoking, when they knew damned well that it was supported by both data and logic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why not hold people not claiming to be scientists to a higher standard? It's not like their science-but-don't-call-it-science experiments are any less potentially damaging than the same behavior done by a 'true scientist'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The scientists represented to the IRB that the dataset was preexisting, and so the IRB passed on the review. It's not clear that the dataset was preexisting, though, since the study seems to indicate that the scientists were involved in the design of the experiment from the beginning. What's more, the paper itself claims to have obtained informed consent when clear there was none.
Two percent of the US population and about 90 percent of the control.
So, as a user of facebook and of technology, and as someone who didn't expect to start having schizophrenic episodes, social isolation, paranoia, and a complete immolation of my life over the last six months, I take to say I did not really appreciate and continue to not appreciate emotional manipulation. Sigh.
Let moderation work. Now someone has to waste mod points modding you, and all of the other repliers (including me, hence by AC post), down.
The troll's been modded down to -1. If you hadn't replied most people would never have seen it.
I had an usused account but deleted it when I got two friends request (received by e-mail) from very close people. Then I could browse a "you might know these people" and there were about a hundred people from my childhood/adolescence-hood. So, I'm concerned that Facebook knew that (and my name, and my main e-mail account that I've used for nearly everything!) and that it probably will still have that data 40 years from now, no matter how limited that is.
When has the Facebook newsfeed ever NOT been manipulated and been merely a list of posts in chronological order from people you are friends with and/or follow?
It strikes me as constantly being manipulated in multiple ways and in a manner noticeable to many people. Most obvious was the "top stories" filter which purported to filter the newsfeed in some manner designed to suppress some comments and promote others.
But we don't know about the criteria for this or the motivation of other, less obvious manipulations designed to enhance or suppress comments. Presumably most motivations are commercially driven to promote advertisers products or increase Facebook usage.
Jokes on you guys - the "leak" was fictional. The real experiment is the public's reaction to this.
I mean, ya; "facebook is the enemy", sure. But honestly? Where's the personal responsibility? You can show me whatever you want, *I* control my emotions and my responses.
This whole thing has seemed a tempest in a tea cup, but because facebook is of questionable morals and ethics, it seems everyone is jumping on board how horrible this was.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Anyone who kills themselves over an emoticon is actually on the right track.
Yeah, it's not like Slashdot ever experiments with different ways to suppress low quality posts or rolls out a Beta experiment to half the site's users.
Just like Windows 8 -- designed to upset us.
But they provide "the feed" for free? And it's just bullshit anyway? Why do you care?
ok, my liberal friend, let me ask you if it is racist to point out most of the media are owned by rich white males? Oh no, that's great, gotta bash whitey! Now what if someone points out that all those rich white males happen to be rich white jews? Uh oh, call the racism police!
Perhaps you're not familiar with the Louis C.K. bit about being white? And being a white male even? And despite all that "discrimination" white males still lead in any number of metrics. For example, percentage of white males in Congress and the Senate surely is much higher than their actual percentage of population.
Whenever I see these sort of poor me, white male, comments I think two things. Here's a white guy who feels like any normalization of a system that has historically treated him preferentially is discrimination and/or he feels like that system hasn't benefited him as much as it ought to so that means racial equality has now been achieved and any further action that he perceives as negative towards him and benefits others is discrimination.
So what you are saying is that just becuase my white ancestors were treated preferentially I should be disadvantaged in life? If so, fuck you.
It's bullshit that I have to get higher grades to enter university, and even if I get in, there are no scholarships for white males (but a shit ton for minorities and women, despite women actually doing better in school than men). And good luck getting hired because all companies are looking for diversity.
People like you are part of the problem by pretending that there is no discrimination against white males or justifying it based on past sufferings. Well guess what? This ain't the past motherfucker. Fuck your affirmative blacktion and all your festivals to celebrate blacks and women and TV channels just for blacks (if there was one for whites only, people would throw a fit. And don't give me that bullshit that every channel is for whites because now every single series just has to feature minorities to please PC faggots like you (yes I used the word faggot, you faggot)
Facebook's "research" reminds me of the treatment that eventually led the Unabomber to drop out of civilization and seek revenge against the system from his remote cabin in the woods.
From Wikipedia: While at Harvard, Kaczynski was among the twenty-two Harvard undergraduates used as guinea pigs in ethically questionable experiments conducted by Henry Murray. In the experiment each student received a code name. Kaczynski was given the code name "Lawful". Among other purposes, Murray's experiments were focused on measuring people's reactions under extreme stress. The unwitting undergraduates were submitted to what Murray himself called "vehement, sweeping and personally abusive" attacks. Assaults to their egos, cherished ideas and beliefs were the tools used to cause high levels of stress and distress. These experiments were conducted at Harvard University from the fall of 1959 through the spring of 1962.
When I see an ad or get into an argument with someone they usually don't have a billion-dollar program of research tracking my own and my friends' behaviour and then covertly adjusting what I see and hear to get their way.
Unless it's election season.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Well, three problems:
1) Their users provide the feed. Facebook just displays it.
2) It isn't 'for free' as Facebook uses the data to advertise to you, and thus earns money on the content you generate.
3) The example I gave was explicitly not bullshit - if it were, why would anyone interfere with it?
> Unless it's election season.
Facebook's got that covered.
So what you are saying is that just becuase my white ancestors were treated preferentially I should be disadvantaged in life? If so, fuck you.
You are treated preferentially now, you just don't realize it because it is part of "normal". The bias towards whiteness and maleness is baked into the system. It was created by white males, after all.
Nice... Silencing those who do not share your view. To hell with freedom of speech and expression. You scumbag filth are the worse.
They probably agreed to it when they signed up!
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
But to say Facebook’s slight alteration of news feeds caused people to suffer depression seems to be unsupported by any kind of data or logic.
Wouldn't the experiment itself provide data and logic to support that?
how about "Babylon The Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the Earth"?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Every single person who feels hurt by what Facebook did should admit (to themselves) that their reason to be upset is because things like these make it obvious that THEY are not in control of their emotions. That THEY are but moats of dust taken for a ride by the world around them.
I don't feel abused or betrayed or manipulated by Facebook. Not that they could. My emotions are mine, and if Facebook could alter them, I would just have to admit that I was wrong, and I would learn from it to be a better ME.
Don't hate. Learn.
When my Karma level reaches 0 I feel in piece with the Universe
If there was an 'American Spring' (ROFL) it wouldn't be happening on Facebook. But that was obvious, right?
Because the opinions of AC's matter...
You make the assumption he was -1 at the time I made my comment, and he wasn't. Interesting to note that I've been modded down for it too, maybe because someone thinks I'm just complaining because I'm Jewish, when in fact I'm not.
Just another day in Paradise