Facebook defends secretly manipulating users, says experiments 'improved our service' - Gadgets and Tech - Life & Style - The Independent
Facebook has responded to criticism it has received for manipulating users’ moods for a psychological experiment by saying the research was undertaken to “improve our service and to make the content people see on Facebook as relevant and engaging as possible.”
The social network has been strongly denounced by users after it published a paper detailing how it was able to affect individuals’ moods by altering the amount of positive or negative content that appeared in their News Feed.
Lawyers and technology experts have also expressed worries that the same methods could be used to manipulate populations for political gain while academics have criticized Facebook failing to acquire the “informed consent” necessary for subjects of human experiments.
In a statement given to The Independent, a spokesperson for the social network said: “This research was conducted for a single week in 2012 and none of the data used was associated with a specific person’s Facebook account. We carefully consider what research we do and have a strong internal review process. There is no unnecessary collection of people’s data in connection with these research initiatives and all data is stored securely.”
Social network researched the power 'emotional
contagion' by altering users' News Feeds to display either mostly
positive or negative emotional content
