Facebook's Secret Experiment

Pass the cheese. :(

Well, most of my works are designed to experiment with the viewers emotions....how is this different?

I don't know, good question, maybe the why?

seems odd that they found positive and negative comments, but were some how not seen with human eyes? did they use the keywords - good news, bad news? of course though it's not much of an experiment, and this is another way to get money.

no one should be surprised that there isn't any privacy there. i remember a chat service, that would record every word you said, and that data would be in the ad's you saw in banners.

next step will be the same, you post negative things like suicide, and ad's will pop up for anti-depressants.


---Mike Savad

It's true, Mike. I believe it did say they used keywords. I will go reread and find out for sure.

I think Mike hit on it H, privacy is a difference. A person views a painting in the privacy of their mind. At least for now, who knows how they are working on getting in there, too.

This is one of the many reasons I don't do Facebook or any other social networking sites. My marketing strategies my well be limited by this decision, but when I weigh this up against the control I'd be handing over to these corporations..well...it's a no brainer. The media have been toying with our emotions for decades if not centuries. And yet each and every user has consented to this by agreeing to their T's and C's...lol.. I've been accused in the past of being paranoid when explaining to friends why I refuse to join these sites.. well.. HA! Told you so! :-)

edit: "we did it because we care" hahahaha!

Personally I don't see anything to worry about, Facebook is free to use or not use as your wish takes you. I always think we are having our minds and thoughts manipulated all the time, if we go into a supermarket there are signs trying to get us to make purchases we don't want or didn't intend to purchase. Television advertising is even worse, so I'm sure what Facebook done for a few days isn't really going to effect anyone.
Perhaps this information shouldn't have been made public at all, what you don't know, you don't worry about - why start worrying now, two years or more after the event

Mike, it said, "In the study, the authors point out that they stayed within the remit of the agreement by using a machine to pick out positive and negative posts, meaning no user data containing personal information was actually viewed by human researchers."

It doesn't say if it was by keywords, just a "machine" but what else could they have used?

Lol who uses that word anymore? Machine? Do they mean a robot?

Barry, you were right. I was a hold out for a long time. Until marketing entered my life. I wish I had stayed off.

Paul, that's a good attitude. Keep your peace about it.

You'll notice no one seems to care that two major universities signed off on this study.

Strange bedfellows, Joshua.

Higher learning establishments receive a large portion of their funding doing research.

maybe i misread it, but did they say they filtered out what you saw in the stream? so if someone said - i have cancer, and no one at all responded, because they didn't see it. and that person became even more depressed because she thought of facebook as their support group - i wonder how many times that happened?

and if it was good news, like i'm getting married, and no one knew because facebook wanted to experiment with people.


i wonder what other head games they are playing, and is that why our feeds sometimes show on that site.

---Mike Savad

I agree with Paul

Your supermarket knows what you eat, when, can even work out if you have visitors, by your store card purchases

Your bank knows just about everything about you, even how skint you are

There is no secrecy any longer and, in some ways this is not a bad thing (for me personally) But, I am in the minority on this side of it lol

Once we all willingly answered the most often used four words on today's telephone....We All Started This Insidious Ball to Roll.

Four words that would have been considered idiotic, 25 years ago.

"Where are you now??"

Once we were expected to answer that question, privacy went out the window.

What naturally followed "Where?" was" How?" and eventually to "Why" and even to "Who are you now??"

And everyday, we gleefully tell all.

For years I've resisted being part of it...finally surrendering.

But now at my age, I don't give a damn as to what I say, and how I say it.

Why I say it, might still be, None of your Business.


Now,

Who knows who's out there, right at this moment,, cataloging our responses to this very forum??...And for what possible nefarious reason??

Has anyone seen the Derren Brown "experiments" where he highlights the power of advertising and "mind control" ?? Check it out! He can turn perfectly law abiding citizens into bank robbers by using these well known and researched techniques.. The media uses these techniques on a daily basis to control the outcome of elections etc. They have the power to turn the less aware members of society into whatever they want them to be. FACT! I think it's a great shame that some people just shrug this off with an "oh well..what can you do?". Take back control of your lives!!!! now excuse me..my tin foil hat keeps falling off and I need to replace the strap.

Mike, the Times article said, "Facebook revealed that it had manipulated the news feeds of over half a million randomly selected users to change the number of positive and negative posts they saw."

I guess that means they filtered the posts?

You remind of this quote from the Times article: “I wonder if Facebook KILLED anyone with their emotion manipulation stunt. At their scale and with depressed people out there, it’s possible,” the privacy activist Lauren Weinstein wrote in a Twitter post."

Maybe FB is trying to counter with a new strategy the study that was done showing people feel unhappier and lonelier after a facebook session than before. http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/08/15/does-facebook-make-sad-study-says-yes/

Abbie, it's true, and now with government healthcare expanding they know who drinks, who smokes, who eats pizza every Friday night, by following our plastic trail.

It really goes back to using cash to have privacy, exactly what they don't want us to do.

lol, Roger, lol Barry....time to unplug HAL.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?"

I do my banking in my sock :-)

LOL, Barry, that's Greek style. My immigrant grandparents went to the bank with a suitcase full of cash, plunked it down on the counter in front of the teller, and said, "I want to buy a house."

You know what I am wondering now? I recently added a Facebook art page and Palo Alto has been all over my a--, I mean portfolio, with their Facebook bot, up and down my images for days now, increasing my views by well over a thousand. I am wondering if they are not getting info on my images for search and marketing reasons, but trying to harvest personal info about me from those images - and/or trying to decide who to put them in front of on Facebook. That's REALLY creepy. I don't like it.

More and more, I am thinking a blog is the way to go. It's been good for my work with cats, maybe I should try one for my art. Kiss Facebook and Twitter goodbye?

The old folks know their stuff :-) I'm with you on that one Anita.. A blog is the way forward for me too! Good luck with it!

First I want to say, I have never been a big fan of FB.... it started out as a way for friends to connect and then it moved on to a public trading company. In and of itself that is bizarre. Nope not buying stock in FB....lol. On the topic of R&D, all companies do it...great tax right offs come along with partnering with Universities....so from a business point of view, why would FB not want to do data collection and since their demographics is the "connected friend networks" it's not a stretch to think they'd want to harvest information about what turns them on or off.... the only reason it was secret was if they announced it ahead of time the study wouldn't have any value. Political parties have been doing the same thing for decades.

If you really want to turn the tables on the data collection companies/organizations start collection data on them. :-))

my two cents
Cheers, Barbara

I agree with Anita and Barry. I was a Facebook hold out until recently but finally gave in. Privacy is gone anyway. Cash unfortunately is going away and I think will eventually be gone. Facebook and google are information gathering companies that have many Big Brother connections.

if only they can give us those kinds of filters, remove the stuff i don't care about (like pets dying, medical issues, getting stuck in traffic, cat antics, food i ate, and odd things i found online), so i can remove that stuff and hear actual info. right now it's like logging into a flip book of odd ball things.


---Mike Savad

FB has always been great at manipulating an emotion. #1 - being annoyed.

I only ever wanted it for family photos - the Fanpage is just a spot to land if someone is looking up your work.

On Facebook:

I'm always being plagued with request to join groups.

I'm not the "Group Joining" kind of guy.

I did join one group though....The Turkey Vulture Society

Just to peddle my Vulture Art.

I've never felt sleazier.

So I guess you can now call me.. "Sleazy Swezey"

There is something else that FB does that gives me the heebie-jeebies. I am convinced they have at least some portion of my credit card data. Here's why:

On some pages, there will be a window on the right-hand side that says something like "rate this place." And then there's a list of places, restaurants, tourist attractions, hotels, airports. Here's the creepy part: The places are VERY specific, like a McDonald's in Versailles, France, or a specific shop in a shopping mall in the Netherlands. These are definitely places I have visited, but -- and this is really important -- they are places I visited almost 25 years ago!

I looked at the list that FB gives me to rate. There are nearly 150 of them. I have been to every single one. Some recently, some a looooong time ago. And it's not just random places in cities I have visited; like I said, very specific places. One is a place where I bought a purse 24 years ago!

I really gave this some thought because it totally creeped me out to see a list of practically everywhere I've been in the last 25 years. And the only common denominator is my credit card. I've had this particular card for 24 years. And, yes, I have used it in all those places.

So does my credit card company give FB some info about me? And does it go back almost 25 years?

Too creepy for me ... can credit cards really share that kind of info going back that far with sites like FB?!?

"...can credit cards really share that kind of info going back that far with sites like FB?!?"

What does your CC user agreement state?

I've deleted all FB ads, they are annoying and I do not want to see them.

Well, OK, I am totally creeped out re: Debroah's report Re: Facebook.

Re: Skype, Barry, I resist having to do my hair. I say, Look, I love you, but NO video. Also the crossover speaking, that's awkward.

Re: groups...who is asking? Facebook or someone you know in the group? 'Marsha would like you to join "Causes"' - really? I'm not sure!

And what about all the people inviting you to play ganes? Do they know Facebook is using them to invite you? To basically tell us what games they play? That's kind of private!

@ Jeffrey "What does your CC user agreement state? " I don't know but I bet Target knows!

I bring up the conspiracy theorist aspect simply to bring attention to the paranoia that is rapid in our society. the paranoia has real bases and should be explored. each person who engages business and pleasure within this technological society needs to read the fine print.

As when it comes to our role in said society, don't many of us create images and use the technology of the statistic engines on this and other sites to gauge the images impact?

"...don't many of us create images and use the technology of the statistic engines on this and other sites to gauge the images impact?"

Some perhaps, Not me.

I just wish Facebook would stop switching my newsfeed to Top Stories.

@ Jeffrey" "Some perhaps, Not me." so you never sorted your images by number of hits or number of comments.......you do know the website you moderate has this ability?

More news and thoughts on this at Financial Times: We Are the Product Facebook Has Been Testing
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6576b0c2-0138-11e4-a938-00144feab7de.html#axzz36OyyEisF

and The Wall Street Journal: Facebook Experiments Had Few Limits
http://online.wsj.com/articles/facebook-experiments-had-few-limits-1404344378?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories

and Defense One: The Military Is Already Using Facebook to Track Your Mood
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/07/military-already-using-facebook-track-moods/87793/?oref=d-topstory

How many of us are willing or able to walk away from this social engineering machine that most if not all thoroughly embraced? How is what FB & Google is doing any different than what marketing advertising companies have been doing for big corporations such as the tobacco and food conglomerates for as long as we can remember?

"How many of us are willing or able to walk away from this social engineering machine that most if not all thoroughly embraced? How is what FB & Google is doing any different than what marketing advertising companies have been doing"

It is a great thing to made aware of this. So many people never give it a thought and have no idea just how much they are being influenced. Simply being aware helps us to DECIDE whether to "embrace" the "social engineering machine", walk away from it, or just use it wisely to our advantage.
Threads like this open more peoples eyes..

I agree with you Barry.
This Social Engineering Machine is not unlike the automobile. even if one does not use a car, they pay for the roads via taxation; the gas cars burn pollute the shared sky and the factories do too; the profits are utilized by industry to lobby for what ever the industry wants. the effects are omnipresent.

I think you better think more about how Facebook uses all the personal info you have on there. Every picture....every word is in their memory banks for certain folks (who I shall not mention here) to have access to.

What in the WORLD is that cartoon picture suppose to be anyway? Is that a person on a cross?

Great comments. It is like the automobile, even if you want to, try and live without one these days, it is very difficult. Mine has limited capacities, and I am very restricted on where I can go, there are not many amenities where I live. But that isn't the hardest part. The hardest part is trying to explain to people why I can't do some things. It was like trying to explain why I didn't have an email address before I got a computer. People just take it for granted you are on Facebook, have a smart phone, have email, yadda yadda yadda. I guess when I feel forced to, it makes me wonder about our freedom.

As far as all this goes, no one really ever asked us, we weren't really "in" on the planning, and even though we have signed terms of agreement, I think even the powers that be realize no one knew then what would be coming - the end of privacy, and maybe even dignity - theirs and ours.

BUT, I have a theory about human beings, as long as they stay human or seek to become that way, they can always overcome any system. Our brains have an infinite capacity, and can always find the loopholes in a system, given enough time. Systems, being manmade, will always be subject to override.

I think outcry about this information is only just beginning, as you said Barry, as long as we don't go to sleep.

Yeah... :-) my hero Sponge Bob+co..

Who cares? If I look up widgets I get ten ads for them on yahoo. And honestly, I'd be more concerned about the 389 profiles the government ordered facebook to provide so they could find disability cheats who may have posted pictures. If you are online, your right to privacy is in jeopardy. If you feel violated, stay off the internet.

Hi Deborah..With respect, It seems by this statement that you DO feel violated, and yet your on the internet?... "And honestly, I'd be more concerned about the 389 profiles the government ordered facebook to provide so they could find disability cheats who may have posted pictures"..edt: and taking the time to post at all shows that you maybe DO care...Just a wee bit :-)
edit: I personally think its more the case that accept were being violated and learn to cope, then minimize the damage!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz - oh, I'm sorry did somebody say something about privacy and freedom? Oh good, is that all? I'll go back to sleep then.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

PS lol Sponge Bob

The Military Is Already Using Facebook to Track Your Mood

Author: Patrick Tucker

[Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist, where he served for nine years.]

"Critics have targeted a recent study on how emotions spread on the popular social network site Facebook, complaining that some 600,000 Facebook users did not know that they were taking part in an experiment. Somewhat more disturbing, the researchers deliberately manipulated users’ feelings to measure an effect called emotional contagion.

Though Cornell University, home to at least one of the researchers, said the study received no external funding, but it turns out that the university is currently receiving Defense Department money for some extremely similar-sounding research — the analysis of social network posts for “sentiment,” i.e. how people are feeling, in the hopes of identifying social “tipping points.”


The tipping points in question include “the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in Turkey,” according to the website of the Minerva Initiative, a Defense Department social science project.


It’s the sort of work that the U.S. military has been funding for years, most famously via the open-source indicators program, an Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) program that looked at Twitter to predict social unrest.


If the idea of the government monitoring and even manipulating you on Facebook gives you a cold, creeping feeling, the bad news is that you can expect the intelligence community to spend a great deal more time and money researching sentiment and relationships via social networks like Facebook. In fact, defense contractors and high-level U.S. intelligence officials say that social network data has become one of the most important tools they use in the collecting intelligence....... "

read more:

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/07/military-already-using-facebook-track-moods/87793/

Personally, I don't think government, hackers, banks, big business, the IRS, Facebook, Google, etc., etc., can restrain themselves with all the info out there. It's like a smorgasbord. People are voyeurs when unbridled and some will do anything to get an edge over others. It's power, isn't it? When somebody knows something about you that you don't know they know? A power very similar to that acquired by deception. I think the trick is when the technology to protect ourselves catches up and exceeds their ability to indulge in an unrestrained invasion of privacy and psychological trespassing, we will be OK. And it will. Sure as eggs.

Deborah.. I actually hope your right about the government checking out disability claims. I may need to, and if they decide to take a look at my profile on here they will find that my art has changed drastically over the past few months due to my own restrictive "disability". It acts as a diary by clearly showing the stone work I was creating up until I was injured.. and the sudden change to Abstract photos of my computer screen and ornaments :-) (this is due to my disability..the little things like standing and walking hurt)

Not sure if tracking the moods on FAA would be of much use to them Anita.. Everyone knows artists are moody bar'stewards, fickle, changeable as hell and total hypocrites. They would probably get fairly tainted readings:-)

Wk 1"How is it this week Charlie?"...... 33.333333%Happy, 33.333333%Indifferent, and 33.333333%Sad
Wk 2"How is it this week Charleson?"...... 33.333333%Happy, 33.333333%Indifferent, and 33.333333%Sad
Wk 3"How is it this week Charltron Hestronic?"...... 33.333333%Happy, 33.333333%Indifferent, and 33.333333%Sad
.
.
.
Until hopefully...
Wk 33,333,334"How is it this week No:4672CH%3.33 ?"...... 33.333333%Happy, 33.333333%Indifferent, and 33.333333%Sad....and the other 00.000001% FREE!

Deborah,

When I look up widgets I get eleven works of art for them here on FAA.

LOL....

No politics should be in this thread.

7. Posts and threads of a political or religious nature are not permitted on the forum.

I was trying to steer it back to art Jeff. Honest.. I'll try again.. some of the commentaries posted here about big brother are in-themselves.. works of art! maybe..a wee bit.

Oh dear, I apologize for riding a little too close to the line, I will close the thead. Thanks for your input everybody, who knew Facebook privacy issues would be so closely aligned with the big P? I certainly didn't when I started this thread. You may all go back to sleep now and I will leave you with one last article on the subject of internet privacy, but I will put it on my FAA blog? If I do that, is that OK, Jeffrey? They, too, mention the human weakness for voyeurism! from The Washington Post... on my blog....http://fineartamerica.com/blogs/regarding-privacyare-we-still-human-beings.html


Please, go back to sleep now...because... after all ....who cares? ....and what difference at this point could it possibly make?....if everything is the same, there are no differences.... g'night everybody,.... g'night Johnboy.... g'night Erin.... zzzz