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0 pointsALittleLight5y ago0 comments

Pretty significant difference between "Facebook has done some research on changing moods" and "Facebook's product is changing your behavior."

It's overly dramatic in the way that I could say "Axe weilding man splits homeowners door uninvited" and "Fireman had to break down a door" and both are technically true, but only one is apt.

Facebook's product is influencing my behavior, technically, maybe, but it's a clumsy description made for the sake of drama. It's more accurate to say their product is targeted advertisements.

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dgellow5y ago

I don't see what else you want. In 2014 it was revealed that Facebook did run experiments to see how much of an impact they can have on people's sentiments. Just check the study, it's public: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full.

The researchers found out that Facebook's news does influence sentiments in a contagious manner. Which implies it does result in behaviors change on the platform, otherwise they don't have a way to measure the effect in the first place...

And don't forget to check the Acknowledgement section:

> We thank the Facebook News Feed team, especially Daniel Schafer, for encouragement and support; the Facebook Core Data Science team, especially Cameron Marlow, Moira Burke, and Eytan Bakshy; plus Michael Macy and Mathew Aldridge for their feedback.

It's not like they hide it, that's exactly why advertisers and political parties partner with Facebook in the first place.

ALittleLightOP5y ago

It's not that I "want" anything else. It's that Facebook's product is ads, even if they also ran experiments to change sentiment. If I want to make a million people sad, I can't buy that from Facebook (directly). Conversely, if I want to show a million people an ad for my widget, I can absolutely directly buy that from Facebook.

dr_dshiv5y ago

The PNAS paper showed very small effect sizes, to be clear. But, yes.

dgellow5y ago

Yes, that's true. At the same time the argument of "The Social Dilemma" is that at Facebook scale you just need a very small effect to influence the crowd in a way that matters. Paraphrasing the documentary (from memory): tuning human behaviours 1% in the direction you want, worldwide, is what Facebook sells and what their customers pay for.

edmundsauto5y ago

Isn't that the goal of just about all human behavior, to influence other humans behavior? Is the issue with Facebook that they are too effective at it, or is it that most marketing & advertising behavior is unethical?

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dgellow5y ago

And don't forget to check the Acknowledgement section:

It's not like they hide it, that's exactly why advertisers and political parties partner with Facebook in the first place.

ALittleLightOP5y ago

dr_dshiv5y ago

The PNAS paper showed very small effect sizes, to be clear. But, yes.

dgellow5y ago

edmundsauto5y ago

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