Comments

1
It was part of a DOD experiment: http://scgnews.com/facebooks-psychologic…
2
If you use Facebook you don't value your privacy and certainly shouldn't be upset about this.
3
Wake me when they apologize for the atrocious methodology, that's the real outrage. If you're going to run massive social experiments on people who don't know about it, you could at least design the experiment well enough that you'd have some idea what the proper result would be.
4
I.E., "We never meant for you to find out about it."
5
Well, "deft" is not a word that came to my mind…

For any company out there who'd like to pay me approximately 0.01% of Sheryl Sandberg's total 2013 compensation and get a better communicator for your money, CYA media-whoring or not, I'm available.
6
Given that Facebook's users already accept that Facebook has complete and arbitrary control over what appears on their feed, I don't see how this experiment is surprising.

In this case it's for a behavioral study rather than for advertising/harvesting personal info/convincing users to give more info. Is the former any worse than the latter?
7
People who are outraged by this don't understand the world they live in. Every website tests audience responses -- every website that's worth a shit, anyways. I would be surprised if Slog hasn't done something similar on a smaller scale.
8
Facebook is no different than many many other corporations - to corporations we are just lab-rats to be manipulated in both hidden and obvious ways to make us identify with and ultimately buy their products. Marketing/advertising is not a billion dollar industry for nothing. So if you are outraged at Facebook, realize that you are saturated at every turn with messages meant to manipulate and control your behavior. It has become so ubiquitous that it seems almost pointless to even comment on it. I just don't see a big difference between what Facebook did and what every consumer-based corporation does every single day.
9
@8,

At this point, I'm just glad for any company that doesn't endless harass me until I fork over my cash to them. (Although, in actual fact, forking your money over to them just invites more harassment since you've identified yourself as a potential mark.) In comparison, passive advertising can be ignored.
10
@1: All the anti-government and anti-Facebook comments look like they're posted through Facebook. Oh, the iron-- no wait, that's just outright stupidity.
11
You're going to feel some pressure.

Probing you is part of our normal business practices.

Everybody does it.

We apologize if you are so naive as to be unaware of the new normal.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled probing, already in progress.

Please wait...

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