[sh33mp]

>Facebook run fun psychological experiments to see if they can manipulate their users - without calling for volunteers first or anything I recognise as ethics.

I've always wondered: How is that different from A/B testing, or any other marketing experiment?

[falcolas]

Two things:

- They weren't experimenting or measuring ads, clickthroughs, or pageviews views; they were experimenting on and measuring emotions directly

- It was run as a psychological study, and published as a psychological study

[orangecat]

they were experimenting on and measuring emotions directly

Every change to an interface can potentially affect the emotions of users, whether or not you try to measure it.

[falcolas]

I won't disagree with your statement, but there's a very large difference between intentionally changing a user's mood by modifying their news feed vs. indirectly and unintentionally affecting a users mood via an interface change.

[908087]

Except in that experiment Facebook was intentionally trying to manipulate users' emotional states.