News:

Oceana has always been at war with Iraq

Main Menu

Facebook conducting SECRET EXPERIMENTS on users.

Started by Pæs, June 28, 2014, 09:01:42 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Pæs

Okay, not quite secret experiments because they kinda published a paper.

http://www.avclub.com/article/facebook-tinkered-users-feeds-massive-psychology-e-206324

QuoteScientists 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!

minuspace

That's some second rate manipulation right there.  Get back to me when they start re-wording your updates, just after you post them, in front of your face.  Let me know if you're still all rockin' those spoilers, then... :horrormirth:

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cainad (dec.)

Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 28, 2014, 01:53:55 PM
Huh. I guess fuck informed consent, right?

Informed consent is for LOSER NERDS who rely on grant money to do their science.

minuspace

Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on June 28, 2014, 02:27:09 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 28, 2014, 01:53:55 PM
Huh. I guess fuck informed consent, right?

Informed consent is for LOSER NERDS who rely on grant money to do their science.

How do you expect us to obtain accurate results without double-blind conditions?

Pæs

Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 28, 2014, 01:53:55 PM
Huh. I guess fuck informed consent, right?

YOU GAVE INFORMED CONSENT WHEN YOU CLICKED "AGREE TO TERMS" NEENER NEENER INCLUDED YOU IN MY STUDY ON A TECHNICALITY - Facebook

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Thanks for undermining real social scientists, Facebook. Good job setting popular trust in researchers back 55 years. Awesome.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Raz Tech

And all this for something that should be apparent without experiments.  Of course if you show someone a bunch of negative things they'll respond in a negative manner.

Also "Facebook Scientists"?  Is that a thing now?

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Raz Tech on June 29, 2014, 04:41:23 AM
And all this for something that should be apparent without experiments.  Of course if you show someone a bunch of negative things they'll respond in a negative manner.

Also "Facebook Scientists"?  Is that a thing now?

Yeah, it's kind of to real scientists as "Facebook Friends" are to real friends.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


xXRon_Paul_42016Xxx(weed)

Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 29, 2014, 04:46:04 AM
Quote from: Raz Tech on June 29, 2014, 04:41:23 AM
And all this for something that should be apparent without experiments.  Of course if you show someone a bunch of negative things they'll respond in a negative manner.

Also "Facebook Scientists"?  Is that a thing now?

Yeah, it's kind of to real scientists as "Facebook Friends" are to real friends.

Putting PhD in "Facebook Science" on my next resume.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 28, 2014, 01:53:55 PM
Huh. I guess fuck informed consent, right?

Well, I hate Zuckerberg, so mission accomplished.   :lulz:
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Cramulus

yep. we all gave informed consent in the user agreement.

The paper is interesting - it's part of a body of research called Affect Control. There's been tons of research on this stuff, but facebook allowed scientists to study these effects in real-time.



I'm really curious about a few things

--They didn't look at frequency of use... I'm curious how strongly this effect is correlated with frequent facebook usage. If there's a strong correlation, you could minimize the emotional impact of facebook by limiting or maybe staggering your usage.

--To be clear, the study doesn't measure the actual emotional impact of seeing all these positive or negative updates--it quantifies emotion via word analysis of status updates. So its only measure of how happy/sad you are is the content of your status updates.

So it's possible that people in a social network surrounded by positive posts follow suit and post other positive status updates--but aren't significantly affected outside of that moment when they're staring at facebook.

I'd be curious to see a follow-up where they measure participant's emotions at various points during the day, using some other measuring tool.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

#12
Quote from: Cramulus on June 29, 2014, 01:37:30 PM
yep. we all gave informed consent in the user agreement.

Not in a sense any Institutional Review Board would recognize or accept as ethical. And very clearly not in any way the NIH would consider ethical. Obviously, Facebook isn't held to NIH standards, but still, performing mood manipulation experiments on a population that could not by any reasonable expectation be considered properly informed or to have given actual consent is shitty and unethical.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

#13
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/06/facebook_unethical_experiment_it_made_news_feeds_happier_or_sadder_to_manipulate.html

QuoteFacebook's methodology raises serious ethical questions. The team may have bent research standards too far, possibly overstepping criteria enshrined in federal law and human rights declarations. "If you are exposing people to something that causes changes in psychological status, that's experimentation," says James Grimmelmann, a professor of technology and the law at the University of Maryland. "This is the kind of thing that would require informed consent."

Ah, informed consent. Here is the only mention of "informed consent" in the paper: The research "was consistent with Facebook's Data Use Policy, to which all users agree prior to creating an account on Facebook, constituting informed consent for this research."

That is not how most social scientists define informed consent.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/06/29/Facebook-Experimented-on-Users-Without-Their-Knowledge

QuoteCriticism of the study is based on the fact that the users were unaware they were being studied and had not given their consent. In studies conducted by universities and other institutions which receive federal funding, the process entails answering to institutional review boards (IRBs), which in turn derive their judgments from ethical standards set such as the Common Rule. One of the pillars of the Common Rule is that subjects must consent to be included in an experiment.

QuoteJamie Guillory would not elaborate to The Atlantic on the subject, instead asserting that Facebook preferred to deal with the matter. A Facebook spokesman did respond to The Atlantic's inquiries by stating, "We carefully consider what research we do and have a strong internal review process. There is no unnecessary collection of people's data in connection with these research initiatives, and all data is stored securely."

Fiske agreed, citing the fact that unlike universities and federal agencies, Facebook is not financially supported by the federal government. She said:
A lot of the regulation of research ethics hinges on government supported research, and of course Facebook's research is not government supported, so they're not obligated by any laws or regulations to abide by the standards. But I have to say that many universities and research institutions and even for-profit companies use the Common Rule as a guideline anyway. It's voluntary. You could imagine if you were a drug company, you'd want to be able to say you'd done the research ethically because the backlash would be just huge otherwise.

Upshot: "We're a corporation, we do whatever we want. You agreed when you created your account that your data could be used in research, therefore you agreed to active and deliberate manipulation of your emotional state".

Yeah, Facebook, once again, thanks for shitting in the pool of science.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cain

#14
QuoteFacebook is not financially supported by the federal government

Uh-huhSure.