dreamshark

I have now read multiple reports of the Facebook experiment where Facebook "manipulated users' newsfeeds" to see how it affected their emotional state. I am mildly appalled but not even a tiny bit surprised. But I am having a hard time figuring out what they actually did. I gather that it was an unusually badly designed experiment based on counting words without regard to context, which means it proved exactly nothing. Kind of a bad ROI for riling up the membership. But what did they DO?

It is my understanding that the Facebook "News Feed" is actually where you read posts from your friends. So were they DELETING posts from friends that had the "wrong" emotional values for this particular subject? Were they moving the placement of the posts so they were less likely to be seen? Or were they actually editing the posts - removing keywords like "happy" and "sad?" Or maybe they were adding posts from fake users to change the emotional balance of the newsfeed?

Facebook users (you know who you are), do you know whether your posts were altered or deleted? Does it matter to you?

supergee, I borrowed your facebook tag format. I hope you don't mind. It cracks me up every time I see it.

Interesting story in the paper this morning, about how Facebook increased voter turnout with a little app that reminded people to vote. Sounds like a good thing, right? Using social media for a good cause, boosting democracy? In fact, the LA Times version of this story gushed, "Finally, scientists have documented that spending time on Facebook isn't all about posting pictures of cute kids and running virtual farms — it can actually be useful to American society."

Read a little further into that feel-good article and you realize:

Facebook can easily decide which ads/apps to display to you depending on what they know about you. And that's a lot.
Facebook knows who your friends are. Not just the long list of people on your Friends list, but which ones you "interact with" most often. And they are not shy about using that information to try to influence your behavior.
Facebook knows your political leanings. So far, they're just relying on what your profile says, but don't think they are stopping there. Here's my favorite line from this article: But for future studies, the team is developing more intricate analyses, inferring political orientation from what comments users write and where they place their "likes".
The results of this study showed that Facebook users that were "reminded by their friends" to vote were 0.4% more likely to do so. In this study, the groups that were chosen to have the voting reminder displayed were randomly assigned for research purposes. But it doesn't have to be random, does it? Remember, Facebook knows who your best friends are and what your politics are. What if the voting reminders this year are NOT so randomly assigned?
Oh, wait, no problem. Facebook's spokesman says "that Facebook is committed to supporting the democratic process." Whew, that's a relief.

supergee, I'm appropriating one of your tags. Hope you don't mind. *hee hee*

Facebook has rolled out another great "feature" - a mechanism for tracking your physical location so you can tell everybody on the Internet where you are at every moment. As far as I can see you cannot opt out of this feature, although you can limit its visibility. You aren't tracked automatically, only if you login and explicitly post your current location. But there's an interesting back door that may not be obvious. BY DEFAULT your friends can post your location for you! They can even lie about where you might be, if your friends roll that way. If you want to disable the feature that lets your friends tell the world where you are, you can do it in the Privacy settings but you have to be fairly persistent to find it.

1) Account verification (as distinct from confirmation) is not possible if you don't have a cell phone that accepts text messages! I am appalled.

2) More explorations of Facebook privacy options

* I originally set all my privacy settings to ultra-paranoid, and even discovered a way to see my own page as others see it. Actually, I found it once, but can't remember how I did it. Oh well, I'm sure I'll run across it again eventually. Ah, here it is. Go to Settings ->Privacy-> Profile. At the top is a box where you can type a friend's name. This displays your page as that friend would see it. This is a handy feature.

* I was trying to find some way to give people a hint which Agnes Gooch I really was (I had no idea there would be so many on Facebook!), so I set my Network to Minneapolis/St. Paul. Whoa!!! Guess what, when you join a network, all your privacy settings change to "Friends and Network Members". I immediately set all mine back to Friends only. But I can now see all sorts of information on the pages of others in my network that are not my friends. Oh, okay, all the ones I've looked at are friends in real life. But I haven't friended them on Facebook. I wonder how many of them realize that everybody in Minneapolis/St.Paul network can now see their pictures and read their wall?

3) Who is out there?
* There are 16 Agnes Gooches, including Agnes L. Gooch (me), THREE of whom are in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Only 2 have profile pictures (neither of which shows the actual user).

* There are 14,000 Kahns.
* There are 43 Sharon Kahns, one of which is my googleganger and another of which is a man.
* There is one Sharon E. Kahn
* There are no Sharon Elizabeth Kahns

I still hate and distrust you, Facebook, but it looks like I'm never going to be able to see my daughter's trip pictures if I don't join. Don't think I like it. Grrr.

Anyway, I gave in last night and opened a Facebook account. Under an alias. With no personal information and every privacy setting on max.

I now understand where all that *(^&%#-ing Facebook spam is coming from. When you start to open your account, the very first screen in the setup wizard cheerfully invites you to provide Facebook with not only your email address (required to confirm the account) but your email PASSWORD!!!! Apparently if you are stupid enough to provide this, FB goes to your email account and uploads your address book, which they proceed to use as their own personal spam resource. Oh. My. God. You can skip past this screen, as it turns out. But isn't it interesting that the very first piece of information that Facebook asks you for is a list of all your friends' email addresses? Hmmm.What does that say about their business model?

Anyway, now I need a few friends so I can see how that part works. So, beloved friends and family members, if you have started saying things like, "I've posted pictures of xxxx to Facebook," you may be getting a friend request from Agnes Gooch. If you friend me, I promise you that I will not be broadcasting your pictures, thoughts, personal information or email addresses to the world.

=== Love, Agnes

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