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Facebook Conducted Psychological Experiments On Unknowing Users

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Sat, 2014-06-28 17:16 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

CREDIT: AP Photo/Gus Ruelas

thinkprogress.org - by Annie-Rose Strasser - June 28, 2014

The latest way that Facebook has been peeking into its users’ personal lives may be the most surprising yet: Facebook researches have published a scientific paper that reveals the company has been conducting psychological experiments on its users to manipulate their emotions.

The experiments sought to prove the phenomenon of “emotional contagion” — as in, whether you’ll be more happy if those in your Facebook news feed are.

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RESEARCH STUDY - Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks

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Sat, 2014-07-05 17:37 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

Facebook’s algorithm — why our assumptions are wrong, and our concerns are right

culturedigitally.org - by Tarleton Gillespie - July 4, 2014

Many of us who study new media, whether we do so experimentally or qualitatively, our data big or small, are tracking the unfolding debate about the Facebook “emotional contagion” study, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. The research, by Kramer, Guillory, and Hancock, argued that small shifts in the emotions of those around us can shift our own moods, even online. To prove this experimentally, they made alterations in the News Feeds of 310,000 Facebook users, excluding a handful of status updates from friends that had either happy words or sad words, and measuring what those users subsequently posted for its emotional content.

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