Facebook’s Emotion Manipulation Study Sparks Outrage

[Delucchi Plus’ own Drew Lawrence was featured in last night’s episode of NBC Nightly News, with his disgruntled tweet serving as an example of public dismay over Facebook’s secret experiment.]

As an online marketer, I walk a fine line between loving and hating the amount of information the internet knows about me.

On the one hand, all the information that Internet giants like Facebook and Google collect on its users helps me to delivery better results for clients and keeps my job interesting. On the other hand, sometimes I start to wonder how much Facebook REALLY knows about us , or better yet, how it affects our lives.

This weekend, we discovered a study published earlier this month in an academic journal that explained how a Facebook data scientist and two university researchers manipulated 689,003 users’ news feeds with positive or negative posts to see if it affected the emotions reflected in their own posts. The manipulation meant that some of the users received an increase in “negative” posts and news stories on their feed while others more more “positive” stories. The aim of the study was to analyze the effect, if any, on a user who sees either more positivity or negativity in their social media experience. The results did show that those who saw more positive posts ended up posting positive posts of their own and vice versa. The results of the study did indeed end up seeing a correlation, the implications of which are concerning (think: brainwashing capabilities, social contagion).

When controversy erupted this weekend over the discovery of the study and the fact that no participants were asked for their consent in participation, Facebook responded immediately to privacy breach concerns by saying that every user has explicity agreed to Facebook’s terms of service, which claim user’s data can be used for “internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.”

While Facebook may have a point (nothing is ever free, people) it still seems wrong. Even academics are chiming in to say that they don’t agree with Facebook’s “research” processes.

What do you think? Should Facebook be allowed to use us as lab rats whenever they want, or should they ask nicely first?