Facebook tinkered with users’ feeds for a massive psychology experiment - Polidicks

[QUOTE] Scientists at Facebook have published a paper showing that they manipulated the content seen by more than 600,000 users in an attempt to determine whether this would affect their emotional state. The paper, “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks,” was published in The Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences. It shows how Facebook data scientists tweaked the algorithm that determines which posts appear on users’ news feeds—specifically, researchers skewed the number of positive or negative terms seen by randomly selected users. Facebook then analyzed the future postings of those users over the course of a week to see if people responded with increased positivity or negativity of their own, thus answering the question of whether emotional states can be transmitted across a social network. Result: They can! Which is great news for Facebook data scientists hoping to prove a point about modern psychology. It’s less great for the people having their emotions secretly manipulated. In order to sign up for Facebook, users must click a box saying they agree to the Facebook Data Use Policy, giving the company the right to access and use the information posted on the site. The policy lists a variety of potential uses for your data, most of them related to advertising, but there’s also a bit about “internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.” In the study, the authors point out that they stayed within the data policy’s liberal constraints by using machine analysis to pick out positive and negative posts, meaning no user data containing personal information was actually viewed by human researchers. And there was no need to ask study “participants” for consent, as they’d already given it by agreeing to Facebook’s terms of service in the first place. Facebook data scientist Adam Kramer is listed as the study’s lead author. In an interview the company released a few years ago, Kramer is quoted as saying he joined Facebook because “Facebook data constitutes the largest field study in the history of the world.” It’s a charming reminder that Facebook isn’t just the place you go to see pictures of your friends’ kids or your racist uncle’s latest rant against the government—it’s also an exciting research lab, with all of us as potential test subjects. [/QUOTE] [url]http://www.avclub.com/article/facebook-tinkered-users-feeds-massive-psychology-e-206324[/url] Anyone want to guess if the CIA is behind this?

Illuminati

No believe it or not there are behavioral scientists who aren't in the CIA

No its obviously Skynet spreading its wings

[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;45237528]No its obviously Skynet spreading its wings[/QUOTE] skynet confirmed for physically located in the sky

go to the page and check the very bottom of it [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] spoiler: it's the onion [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] wait, i checked the about us bit and it's real. what

[QUOTE=evlbzltyr;45237551]go to the page and check the very bottom of it [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] spoiler: it's the onion [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] wait, i checked the about us bit and it's real. what[/QUOTE] yeah but its the AV club? I..I don't know what to believe anymore. [editline]oh[/editline] Oh you edited the post.

[QUOTE=evlbzltyr;45237551]go to the page and check the very bottom of it [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] spoiler: it's the onion[/QUOTE] No, the AV Club is the Onion's sister publication that covers pop culture and is non-satirical

[QUOTE=evlbzltyr;45237551]go to the page and check the very bottom of it [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] spoiler: it's the onion [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] wait, i checked the about us bit and it's real. what[/QUOTE] what are you talking about

[QUOTE=evlbzltyr;45237551]go to the page and check the very bottom of it [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] spoiler: it's the onion [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] wait, i checked the about us bit and it's real. what[/QUOTE] The AV club is the onions legit news site.

Do note that the scientists responsible for the study published their report through [URL="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full"] the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America[/URL], or PNAS. I'm probably too old to be giggling about it.

-irrelevant-

i'm no expert but isn't that kind of a dick move on facebook's part given the whole ethics of experimentation thing

[QUOTE=geogzm;45237629]i'm no expert but isn't that kind of a dick move on facebook's part given the whole ethics of experimentation thing[/QUOTE] The whole of Facebook is a dick move IMHO.

My heart is not a toy, Facebook.

[QUOTE=evlbzltyr;45237551]go to the page and check the very bottom of it [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] spoiler: it's the onion [editline]28th June 2014[/editline] wait, i checked the about us bit and it's real. what[/QUOTE] I thought the same thing when I heard of the AV club

Could explain the massive influx of bitchy posts from people. God, that pisses me off. As soon as I complained in a post about it (i'm a hypocrite, me), I started seeing more.

[QUOTE=geogzm;45237629]i'm no expert but isn't that kind of a dick move on facebook's part given the whole ethics of experimentation thing[/QUOTE] Maybe, if you really, [i]really[/i] attach yourself to the literal values of research ethics. But I'd say that given how valuable this kind of research is/can be and how their user agreement does state that their data can be used for research purposes, I'd say it's fine.

Negativity breeds negativity. But it's interesting that a web algorithm can affect your mood Poor manipulateable humans :(

the problem with any complaining about it is that your friends were the ones making the posts that helped sway your mood anyways. It's no secret that empathy through reading is a thing, there's already been tons of studies and documentation that shows that facebooking makes people more depressed in general because friends tend to post only highlights of their life. Comparing your own good and bad situations to other people's seemingly overall positive situations, you might end up feeling like crap in comparison. This also causes people to put on a face and pretend you're doing fine, posting highlights and exaggerations to compensate for it, only reinforcing the cycle

[QUOTE=Chief Martini;45237820]Maybe, if you really, [i]really[/i] attach yourself to the literal values of research ethics. But I'd say that given how valuable this kind of research is/can be and how their user agreement does state that their data can be used for research purposes, I'd say it's fine.[/QUOTE] That's a different perspective, seems like it wasn't such a dick move in the long run

This could be interesting, if someone posts a lot of negative things maybe positive content would be prioritized in what they look at.

[QUOTE=Reds;45237540]skynet confirmed for physically located in the sky[/QUOTE] Molenet Moleman will rise.

[quote]“Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks"[/quote] could they even have picked a creepier name for it, that's like, only a few levels below "Convincing the general public to perceive Chinese babies as hot dogs via status update manipulation" or "Let's fill the NYC water supply with the T-Virus"

Would this not be declaring (albeit a pointless) psychological war on those 600K+?

[quote]your racist uncle’s latest rant against the government[/quote] And that's why our household and their household all have the other on block.

[QUOTE=Mabus;45237519]Illuminati[/QUOTE] Cialuminsantichrist

[QUOTE=Mabus;45237519]Illuminati[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/blogimages/DeusEx0919.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=dai;45237883]the problem with any complaining about it is that your friends were the ones making the posts that helped sway your mood anyways. It's no secret that empathy through reading is a thing, there's already been tons of studies and documentation that shows that facebooking makes people more depressed in general because friends tend to post only highlights of their life. Comparing your own good and bad situations to other people's seemingly overall positive situations, you might end up feeling like crap in comparison. This also causes people to put on a face and pretend you're doing fine, posting highlights and exaggerations to compensate for it, only reinforcing the cycle[/QUOTE] I should make a fake facebook account where I update nothing but insanely depressing boring shit kinda like this [t]http://s3.amazonaws.com/ilovecoffee-img/uploads/coffee_dad/tweet.jpg[/t][t]http://pantograph-punch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/coffee-dad.jpg[/t] and make as many facebook friends as I can thereby counterbalancing it so that I may make people happy!

[QUOTE=seano12;45243199][IMG]http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/blogimages/DeusEx0919.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] Old men, running the world. A new age!