Facebook manipulated the emotions of hundreds of thousands of its
users, and found that they would pass on happy or sad emotions, it has
said. The experiment, for which researchers did not gain specific
consent, has provoked criticism from users with privacy and ethical
concerns.
For one week in 2012, Facebook skewed nearly 700,000 users’ news
feeds to either be happier or sadder than normal. The experiment found
that after the experiment was over users’ tended to post positive or
negative comments according to the skew that was given to their
newsfeed.
The research has provoked distress because of the manipulation involved.
Studies
of real world networks show that what the researchers call ‘emotional
contagion’ can be transferred through networks. But the study is
evidence that the effect can happen without direct interaction or
nonverbal clues.
Facebook can use algorithm to make users happy or sad and even scientist that edited the study said she was 'creeped out' by it
