Facebook users angry with becoming unwitting research subjects
30 Jun 2014
News that Facebook researchers had manipulated the content of some users in an attempt to gauge their emotional response has drawn the ire of users.
According to CNN, the social network in early 2012 changed the content mix in the News Feeds of almost 690,000 users for over a week. While some people were shown a higher number of positive posts, more negative posts were seen by others.
The presitigious academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science published the results of the experiment, conducted by researchers from Cornell, the University of California, San Francisco, and Facebook.
The results of the study suggested that users who were shown more negative content, tended to produce negative posts. On the hand users in the positive group responded with more upbeat posts.
Facebook was thus able to successfully change the emotional state of its users and though the mood changes were small, according to the researchers the findings had major implications given the size and scale of the social network.
Under the social networks terms of service, the company was allowed to conduct this kind of research, but many users responded with anger at what they termed as a dangerous social experiment.
A Facebook researcher apologised for the experiment.
Facebook data scientist, Adam Kramer who was among the study's authors, wrote on his Facebook page yesterday that the team was ''very sorry for the way the paper described the research and any anxiety it caused.''
Bloomberg quoted James Grimmelmann, a professor of technology and the law at the University of Maryland as saying Facebook knew it could push its users' limits, invade their privacy, use their information and get away with it. He added, Facebook had done so many things over the years that scared and freaked out people.
He added, though anger would not have a long-lasting effect and while some users might threaten to leave Facebook, most people ''want to be where their friends are'' and there was no alternative to the social networking site that provided more privacy.
The study was conducted to see if emotions could spread among people without face-to-face contact.
The Facebook study is ''really important research'' that shows the value of receiving positive news and how it improves social connections, said.
According to James Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, the Facebook study was ''really important research'' that showed the value of receiving positive news and how it improved social connections.
