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> Facebook intentionally made thousands upon thousands of people sad. Hang on. Wasn't the experiment to see whether users would post gloomier or happier messag

> Facebook intentionally made thousands upon thousands of people sad. Hang on. Wasn't the experiment to see whether users would post gloomier or happier messages respectively? This very different from intentionally making people sad.

staunch 12y ago
"I only silently removed happiness from your life because I was curious what your reaction would be!"
- csallen 12y ago
  Silently removed happiness from my web application that you visit on a voluntary basis. If you think my web app is too gloomy, feel free to stop coming.
  - staunch 12y ago
    What if Gmail started silently removing happy emails from your Inbox by auto-archiving them?
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      You expect GMail to show you every non-spam message sent to you in your inbox. On Facebook, on the other hand, you expect a curated list of recent posts - otherwise you wouldn't be able to keep up with what your 500+ friends and 1500+ liked pages post every day. So comparing GMail to Facebook makes no sense at all.
      - staunch 12y ago
        Gmail users have an expectation that Google won't start silently diverting their legitimate email as an experiment on them. That's the comparison if you didn't quite grasp that. You're claiming that users would "expect" Facebook to do something like filter out all the happy posts from their friends and family without telling them? I don't think many would agree with you.
        csallen 12y ago
        I think he's merely claiming that you expect Facebook to curate the news feed. How they do so (and for what purpose) is ever-changing and has never been fully transparent, thus your expectations for those particular factors is irrelevant.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        staunch 12y ago
        Yes. He's saying that their lack of transparency justifies their abuse. I'm trying to explain that I disagree.
        TeMPOraL 12y ago
        I don't see any abuse here, and I believe that their lack of transparency wrt. filtering algorithms is justified. First off all, the shortest description of what they do wouldn't probably be far from publishing the algorithm iteslf. An algorithm that's ever changing and probably different depending on where you live or to what group you were randomly assigned. 99% of people wouldn't care anyway, and being transparent about the algorithm would likely make them less happy - right now they accept Facebook as is and don't think twice about it; give them the description of how things work and suddenly everyone will start saying that Facebook filtering sucks because random-reason-511. Moreover, the only people that stand to benefit from knowing Facebook's algorithm are advertisers, who will game the hell out of the system for their own short-term benefit, just like they do with Google. It's something neither Facebook users, nor Facebook itself want.
        staunch 12y ago
        Sorry, you failed to comprehend what I said and I even made it really short. Maybe try reading it a few more times.
- resdirector 12y ago
  Their method of removing happy posts is not the same as deliberately making people sad. Before the experiment it was highly plausible that people would become more happy if they saw less happy posts by others[0]. Moreover, I think companies should be doing more experiments like the FB one -- it's high time that human happiness be prioritized over other metrics such as profit, revenue, number of likes etc. [0] http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/01/the_antisocial_network.html http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/01/the_a...

staunch 12y ago

"I only silently removed happiness from your life because I was curious what your reaction would be!"

csallen 12y ago
Silently removed happiness from my web application that you visit on a voluntary basis. If you think my web app is too gloomy, feel free to stop coming.
- staunch 12y ago
  What if Gmail started silently removing happy emails from your Inbox by auto-archiving them?
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    You expect GMail to show you every non-spam message sent to you in your inbox. On Facebook, on the other hand, you expect a curated list of recent posts - otherwise you wouldn't be able to keep up with what your 500+ friends and 1500+ liked pages post every day. So comparing GMail to Facebook makes no sense at all.
    - staunch 12y ago
      Gmail users have an expectation that Google won't start silently diverting their legitimate email as an experiment on them. That's the comparison if you didn't quite grasp that. You're claiming that users would "expect" Facebook to do something like filter out all the happy posts from their friends and family without telling them? I don't think many would agree with you.
      - csallen 12y ago
        I think he's merely claiming that you expect Facebook to curate the news feed. How they do so (and for what purpose) is ever-changing and has never been fully transparent, thus your expectations for those particular factors is irrelevant.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        staunch 12y ago
        Yes. He's saying that their lack of transparency justifies their abuse. I'm trying to explain that I disagree.
        TeMPOraL 12y ago
        I don't see any abuse here, and I believe that their lack of transparency wrt. filtering algorithms is justified. First off all, the shortest description of what they do wouldn't probably be far from publishing the algorithm iteslf. An algorithm that's ever changing and probably different depending on where you live or to what group you were randomly assigned. 99% of people wouldn't care anyway, and being transparent about the algorithm would likely make them less happy - right now they accept Facebook as is and don't think twice about it; give them the description of how things work and suddenly everyone will start saying that Facebook filtering sucks because random-reason-511. Moreover, the only people that stand to benefit from knowing Facebook's algorithm are advertisers, who will game the hell out of the system for their own short-term benefit, just like they do with Google. It's something neither Facebook users, nor Facebook itself want.
        staunch 12y ago
        Sorry, you failed to comprehend what I said and I even made it really short. Maybe try reading it a few more times.
resdirector 12y ago
Their method of removing happy posts is not the same as deliberately making people sad. Before the experiment it was highly plausible that people would become more happy if they saw less happy posts by others[0]. Moreover, I think companies should be doing more experiments like the FB one -- it's high time that human happiness be prioritized over other metrics such as profit, revenue, number of likes etc. [0] http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/01/the_antisocial_network.html http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/01/the_a...