8 ms·
There are a lot of reasons to dislike Facebook, but I don't think their (public) research on the effect of social media on their users is one. You're exposed t
by asteli 9y ago
There are a lot of reasons to dislike Facebook, but I don't think their (public) research on the effect of social media on their users is one.
You're exposed to psychological experiments on every large website you use, although typically the psychometrics are more limited to things like "did you click the button that gives us money?" instead of questions like "how does the emotional content of the news feed affect our users well being?"
Also the fact that they made this research public is, in my eyes, a sign of good faith (in this specific case), and an indication that at least some people in the company take the power they have over their users' health seriously.
- kbd 9y agoI hear you, but can't agree fully. They showed a subset of their users negative posts to see if it negatively impacted their lives. As this could have been expected, they knowingly hurt their own users. I have lots of other reservations about working for Facebook, that was just the one I specifically cited to the recruiter.
- mattnewton 9y agoI buy it was done in good faith, (and it’s unfortunate that the lesson they took away from it may have been just to keep their mouth shut). The lesson here though was that people at Facebook weren’t aware of the responsibility the data they have puts on them. It showed a surprising lack of awareness and care for the users of their platform. Regardless of the intention it was grossly irresponsible to do the experiment in that way. The kind of data that Facebook had and was manipulating is completely more personal and completely different than getting people to click a buy button, a distinction lost on them. We’re talking about people’s relationships with their family, their old friends, and we’re talking about cries for help or compassion that were suppressed to see how it would affect users mood, not just engagement.