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

theguardian.com

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

#61

Post by bob33212 »

jb775 wrote: post #34

I noticed during the election that whenever I glanced at the fb "watch" video section, it was videos of guys getting into fist fights, or videos containing disturbing violence. I don't ever watch or search for videos like this, so it's not like it was selected based on my watch history or something. At the time, I figured it was a psychological trick to suck me into viewing more ads since violence has that "can't loo…

I rarely use facbook but when I do they show me some woodworking projects. I have never said anything about woodworking or joined any wordworking groups on facebook. They are just making a guess that someone like me would find those interesting.

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

#62

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

typon wrote: post #55
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…

The constant derision of journalists in tech circles (especially on HN) is kind of shocking to see. Did you read the article or did you miss that the journalist is relaying fellow researchers' apprehensiveness about Facebook being allowed to conduct an unethical study. This article [1] is linked in the second paragraph. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebook-...

It's nothing personal against journalists, but the economics of the business mean that they have huge incentives to make things seem more outrageous or nefarious than they actually are.

I did read the whole article, and that doesn't excuse the BS clickbait title of "Facebook deliberately made people sad."

I find the fact that the article is complaining about emotional manipulation by Facebook, while using a deliberately manipulative title, to be more than a tad ironic.

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

#63

Post by graeme »

thatcat wrote: post #37
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…

That's the definition of an unethical experiment design and would be considered academic misconduct if that were academic work. Regardless of intent, fb probably shouldn't be allowing front end devs to design psychological experiments at mass scale. https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Experimental_ethics

Doesn’t that suggest professional ethics are immoral? They block a temporary, one off experiment which could suggest how to avoid sadness.

The alternative is relying on intuition only and possibly making people permanently sadder. Or is there a way to achieve this knowledge consistent with the field of research ethics?

We saw this with challenge trials in the pandemic where ethicists fretted people would reject them and concluded challenge trials are immoral. Meanwhile opinion polls suggest people view challenge trials as virtuous and the current method of waiting for infections as immoral.

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

#64

Post by detaro »

Aunche wrote: post #49
mhh__ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's technically correct but implies malicious intent. It's like saying "Pfizer deliberately injected a substance in people that kills them" to describe a failed drug trial.

Guess why you need to opt in to a drug trial.

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

#65

Post by unethical_ban »

thatcat wrote: post #37
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…

That's the definition of an unethical experiment design and would be considered academic misconduct if that were academic work. Regardless of intent, fb probably shouldn't be allowing front end devs to design psychological experiments at mass scale. https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Experimental_ethics

How would it have been ethical?

If their current process was already suspected to be the worse of the two, and their goal was to improve peoples' moods per se, what is the ethical thing to do? Keep people feeling more sad?

Or, perhaps, stop being algorithmic in what people see, or else put people in full control of simple sorting (prioritize my "starred" category and sort by date)?

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

#66

Post by rendall »

typon wrote: post #55
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…

The constant derision of journalists in tech circles (especially on HN) is kind of shocking to see. Did you read the article or did you miss that the journalist is relaying fellow researchers' apprehensiveness about Facebook being allowed to conduct an unethical study. This article [1] is linked in the second paragraph. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebook-...

Questioning whether someone read the article is against the guidelines:

> "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that.""

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#67

Post by antiterra »

typon wrote: post #55
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…

The constant derision of journalists in tech circles (especially on HN) is kind of shocking to see. Did you read the article or did you miss that the journalist is relaying fellow researchers' apprehensiveness about Facebook being allowed to conduct an unethical study. This article [1] is linked in the second paragraph. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebook-...

The commentary is more on the clickbait title, which very likely could have been written by someone other than the article’s author. (NB: journalists do A/B testing to pick the title that incites the most clicks from outrage[1].)

Further, the article you link appears to have commentary by a single researcher.

Here’s a writeup by researcher who thinks it wasn’t unethical at all and that it would have passed IRB as performed. It, of course, does not end the discussion, but it does demonstrate that the issue is more complex than a company deliberately making people sad:

https://hbr.org/2014/07/were-okcupids-and-facebooks-experime...

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/media-values-...

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

#68

Post by tittenfick »

jb775 wrote: post #34

I noticed during the election that whenever I glanced at the fb "watch" video section, it was videos of guys getting into fist fights, or videos containing disturbing violence. I don't ever watch or search for videos like this, so it's not like it was selected based on my watch history or something. At the time, I figured it was a psychological trick to suck me into viewing more ads since violence has that "can't loo…

Social media algorithms are designed to show you things which make you upset because that type of content is highly likely to "engage."

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

#69

Post by fogof »

How sad did this experiment really make people? The chart in the study says that people who saw fewer positive posts used one percent fewer positive words and about 0.3% more negative words. But on the other hand, they were seeing fewer positive posts, so maybe they were just replying to the posts they saw in a way that was natural, without their inner emotional state being very affected.

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

#70

Post by beforeolives »

bob33212 wrote: post #61
jb775 wrote: post #34

I noticed during the election that whenever I glanced at the fb "watch" video section, it was videos of guys getting into fist fights, or videos containing disturbing violence. I don't ever watch or search for videos like this, so it's not like it was selected based on my watch history or something. At the time, I figured it was a psychological trick to suck me into viewing more ads since violence has that "can't loo…

I rarely use facbook but when I do they show me some woodworking projects. I have never said anything about woodworking or joined any wordworking groups on facebook. They are just making a guess that someone like me would find those interesting.

You're breaking some data scientist's heart by calling their model "just making a guess".
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