Facebook manipulated users emotions in secret study—report

WASHINGTON — A study detailing how Facebook secretly manipulated the news feed of some 700,000 users to study “emotional contagion” has prompted anger on social media.

For one week in 2012 Facebook tampered with the algorithm used to place posts into user news feeds to study how this affected their mood.

The study, conducted by researchers affiliated with Facebook, Cornell University, and the University of California at San Francisco, appeared in the June 17 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full.pdf).

 

The researchers wanted to see if the number of positive, or negative, words in messages they read affected whether users then posted positive or negative content in their status updates.

Indeed, after the exposure the manipulated users began to use negative or positive words in their updates depending on what they were exposed to.

Results of the study spread when the online magazine Slate and The Atlantic website wrote about it on Saturday.

“Emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness,” the study authors wrote.

“These results indicate that emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via social networks.”

While other studies have used metadata to study trends, this appears to be unique because it manipulates the data to see if there is a reaction.

The study was legal according to Facebook’s rules — but was it ethical?

“#Facebook MANIPULATED USER FEEDS FOR MASSIVE PSYCH EXPERIMENT… Yeah, time to close FB acct!” read one Twitter posting.

Other tweets used words like “super disturbing,” “creepy” and “evil,” as well as angry expletives, to describe the experiment.

Susan Fiske, a Princeton University professor who edited the report for publication, told The Atlantic that she was concerned about the research and contacted the authors.

They in turn said that their institutional review boards approved the research “on the grounds that Facebook apparently manipulates people’s News Feeds all the time.”

Fiske admitted to being “a little creeped out” by the study.

Facebook told The Atlantic that they “carefully consider” their research, and have “a strong internal review process.”

Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, says it has more than one billion active users.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook in fresh privacy row with new policy

WASHINGTON – Facebook is drawing fire from privacy activists again, after unveiling a new policy which could turn users’ data and pictures into advertising.

The new plan would “dramatically expand the use of personal information for advertising purposes,” said a letter this week to the US Federal Trade Commission by six privacy organizations.

The letter said the changes violate a 2011 consent order with the US watchdog agency and urged the FTC to “act to enforce its order.”

If the changes take effect, the letter said, “Facebook users who reasonably believed that their images and content would not be used for commercial purposes without their consent will now find their pictures showing up on the pages of their friends endorsing the products of Facebook’s advertisers.”

“Remarkably, their images could even be used by Facebook to endorse products that the user does not like or even use,” added the letter from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog and three other groups.

Facebook unveiled the changes as part of a settlement of a class action suit over the use of user names and images in so-called “sponsored stories.”

According to the letter, Facebook’s existing policy allowed its users to limit how their name and profile picture may be associated with advertising.

Under the newly proposed policy, Facebook says, “You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content.”

Activists said this allowed Facebook to turn virtually all user data into advertising.

“Facebook has long played fast and loose with users’ data and relied on complex privacy settings to confuse its users, but these proposed changes go well beyond that,” said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s privacy director.

“Facebook’s overreach violates the FTC consent order that was put in place after the last major privacy violation; if the commission is to retain any of its credibility, it must act immediately to enforce that order.”

Also endorsing the letter were the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, US PIRG and Patient Privacy Rights.

Facebook officials pointed out that its policies were not changed, but clarified under the new language.

“As part of this proposed update, we revised our explanation of how things like your name, profile picture and content may be used in connection with ads or commercial content to make it clear that you are granting Facebook permission for this use when you use our services,” a company spokesperson said.

“We have not changed our ads practices or policies – we only made things clearer for people who use our service.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Bug exposes contacts of some on Facebook

Facebook says a bug in its system caused 6 million users’ contact information to be inadvertently exposed.

The social media company said Friday that a bug led to users’ contact information, such as email addresses or phone numbers, to be accessed by other users who either had some contact information about that person or some connection to them.

Facebook said in a blog post that the cause of the bug is “pretty technical” but that the problem is tied to its “Download Your Information” tool.

The company uses the information that users upload to better tailor the friend suggestions it issues. The bug caused some of this information to be inadvertently stored in association with a person’s contact information as part of their Facebook account.

As a result, if someone downloaded an archive of their Facebook account through the “Download Your Information” tool, they may have been provided with additional addresses or telephone numbers for their contacts or people with whom they have some connection. Because the contact information was provided by other people on Facebook, it was not necessarily accurate.

Facebook said it has fixed the problem and is in the process of notifying affected users via email.

The affected accounts represent only a fraction of the over 1 billion users on the social media site.

Facebook, which is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, said that it has no evidence that the bug has been used maliciously and it has not received complaints.

source: technology.inquirer.net

New York Jewish school tells students to get off Facebook or be expelled

NEW YORK – For Facebook users at a Hasidic all-girls high school in New York it's either Exodus -- or expulsion.

Students at the Orthodox Beth Rivkah High School have been ordered to immediately delete their accounts on the popular social-networking site and pay a $100 fine, or be kicked out of the school.

"Girls are getting killed on the internet -- that's the reason for it," Benzion Stock, administrator of the Crown Heights school, said.

Stock said Facebook is also off-limits because it encourages girls to violate the Orthodox code of modesty.

"The internet is a good way to ruin marriages and families," Stock said. "We don't want them there, period. It's the wrong place for a Jewish girl to be. Facebook is not a modest thing to do. Socializing on Facebook could lead to the wrong things."

source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/29/new-york-jewish-school-tells-students-to-get-off-facebook-or-be-expelled/#ixzz1qUDGBAyf?test=latestnews