Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012)

Post by alfl » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #33

philplckthun wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, since this has been a while ago it's hard to tell what to do about this. Personally I find it hard to draw any conclusions from this just due to the time that has passed. I don't use Facebook, so maybe it's just my distance from it. But it has happened and it's worth stating that this is basically a psychological experiment and not a simple A/B test, but at a company that most likely at the time didn't ha…

Let's imagine hypothetically that sad, negative posts get more engagement by whatever metric Facebook uses, and Facebook was paying no attention to sentiments at all and ending up putting more sad posts on feeds. Would that have been unethical? I can't really see what would be so different.

Post by tobr » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #33

philplckthun wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, since this has been a while ago it's hard to tell what to do about this. Personally I find it hard to draw any conclusions from this just due to the time that has passed. I don't use Facebook, so maybe it's just my distance from it. But it has happened and it's worth stating that this is basically a psychological experiment and not a simple A/B test, but at a company that most likely at the time didn't ha…

Let's imagine hypothetically that sad, negative posts get more engagement by whatever metric Facebook uses, and Facebook was paying no attention to sentiments at all and ending up putting more sad posts on feeds. Would that have been unethical? I can't really see what would be so different.

Post by alfl » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #17

Is it against the rules for me to use HN as a dating site? I'm going to pen-test it: I enjoy cuddling, long walks on the beach, and services that do not run social experiments on me like something out of a cheap movie plot about a mad-scientist. to contact this user please dial "jancsika" on your rotary phone now

Post by NateEag » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

doublerabbit wrote: post #32

towergratis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does affect you. Because you get the feeling you are "part" of the community. I used to be very active in HN until I got into a heated discussion with someone and since then my HN "flag" privileges were stripped away. I know I shouldn't care, but I couldn't help it. Now I am just lurking on HN and rarely reply with this new account using TOR and care as little about "karma" as I do about "producing value" with my…

Feel the same. HN is exactly the same as Reddit, just a different crowd and less edge. It's nice to think that you can have a civil discussion on the HN platform but you can't. The whole internet karma/points is a flawed system. For HN: You should have to give a reason to down votes. To give someone downvote permissions and then allow them to downvote on something they bias, isn't far.

Post by Aunche » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #40

antiterra wrote: post #7

Product Person #1: Hey, here’s a writeup that says if we show too many positive posts to people that it creates bad feelings. Should we show less positive posts? Product Person #2: Not sure, wouldn’t negative posts make people feel worse? Product Person #1: Wow, I donno, maybe we should try adjusting additional posts people see one way a bit and see what happens? Product Person #2: Not a bad idea, how about we try bo…

> This company deliberately made people sad Which would be correct, surely?