Joe Rogan: Facebook’s Secret Experiment That Manipulated 700,000 Users Without Warning
Posted by freedomforall 2 weeks, 2 days ago to Technology
Excerpt:
"“There’s a famous Facebook experiment I read about that took place in 2012 and was published in 2014, where they announce that they’ve achieved, mass emotional contagion at scale,” Lemov told Rogan.
She explained how Facebook altered people’s newsfeeds without their knowledge or consent.
“Whenever you go on the platform, you agree to be tested or AB testing. So this experiment exposed a group to a more—their newsfeed was altered in a negative direction emotionally, as measured by word counting software,” she said.
The results, she added, were deeply unsettling.
“And they discovered that that group that had a negative exposure also responded in a more negative way, as judged through their posts and likes and responses.”
“The group that was exposed to a more positive newsfeed by altering the algorithm then had also a measurably statistically significant effect of more positive emotional response—and the control group was unaltered by this.”
In other words, Facebook wasn’t just studying emotions—they were actively shaping them.
And no one was ever warned."
"“There’s a famous Facebook experiment I read about that took place in 2012 and was published in 2014, where they announce that they’ve achieved, mass emotional contagion at scale,” Lemov told Rogan.
She explained how Facebook altered people’s newsfeeds without their knowledge or consent.
“Whenever you go on the platform, you agree to be tested or AB testing. So this experiment exposed a group to a more—their newsfeed was altered in a negative direction emotionally, as measured by word counting software,” she said.
The results, she added, were deeply unsettling.
“And they discovered that that group that had a negative exposure also responded in a more negative way, as judged through their posts and likes and responses.”
“The group that was exposed to a more positive newsfeed by altering the algorithm then had also a measurably statistically significant effect of more positive emotional response—and the control group was unaltered by this.”
In other words, Facebook wasn’t just studying emotions—they were actively shaping them.
And no one was ever warned."
