Facebook toys with our emotions by conducting mood altering experiment on users’ feeds

Facebook is at it again. The Orwellian nightmare of a social network has been called out for conducting a mood altering experiment with its users’ feeds in an attempt to illicit positive or negative emotions.

This is no surprise to us whatsoever. We would expect nothing less of Facebook. This is a free service where you (the user) are the product, and advertisers are the customers. As a product Facebook feels (and essentially does) have the right to suck the most revenue out of you as possible.

Forget the touchy feely real name, relationship status, baby photo fluff that Facebook butters you up with. The social network makes money on selling you (your data, info, photos, likes etc…) to anyone willing to pay. 

Business Insider brings us more details on the creepy FB experiment:

Facebook’s data scientists conducted a massive experiment where it messed with people’s feeds and proved that longer-lasting moods, like happiness or depression, can be transferred across the social network.

The company tweaked the Newsfeed algorithms of 689,003 unwitting Facebook users, so that people were seeing an abnormally low number of either positive or negative posts.

In a recently published study, the scientists say they found that when people saw fewer positive posts on their feeds, they produced fewer positive posts and instead wrote more negative posts. On the flip side, when scientists reduced the number of negative posts on a person’s newsfeed, those individuals became more positive themselves.

And if you feel a little taken advantage of by Facebook, Zucky and Sheryl ‘lean in’ Sandberg, well suck it up:

…the study highlights something that most users probably don’t think about: By agreeing to the Facebook’s Data Use Policy when you sign up, you’re automatically giving it permission to include you in big psychological experiments like this, without your knowledge.

If you crave the fast food tingles and validation that only a quick Like on your ‘summer photos’ can provide, then also expect to be treated like the cattle Facebook sees you as. 

References:

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-study-emotional-states-transfer-2014-6#ixzz360q1bypc