Who remembers Facebook’s social experiment this past March, when Facebook manipulated the data seen by more than 600,000 users in an attempt to determine their emotional outlook. In fact the techie scientists at Facebook actually published their findings in a paper, titled ‘Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks,’ which was published in ‘The Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences.’
Psychographics under FB’s microscope. . .
In it, it demonstrated how the Facebook team blatantly tweaked the algorithm that determined which user posts showed up on their news feeds, specifically pulling the number of positive or negative terms viewed by Facebook Tinkering with Users’ Emotionsrandomly selected users. The network then sliced and diced this data to determine if people responded with increased positivity or negativity on various topics. This was done with the goal of determining whether emotional states could be transmitted across a social network.
Survey Says. . .
Bingo! The results proved that it was possible (what a revelation!) Nonetheless, it was considered great findings for Facebook, as Zuckerberg et al viewed it as a door opening to the hallowed halls of scholarly research. Their self-acknowledgement and self-aggrandizement was considered forging new ground in modern psychology. Wow, quite a pat on their collective backs, wouldn’t you say?
On the other side of the issue sits users like you and I. For us, it was less of a stellar achievement – in fact many considered it a blatant manipulation of our private data where we were being used as proverbial lab rats in a psuedo-scientific experiment.
Them’s got the rights. . .
Facebook’s response to us naysayers was fairly cold: Hey you guys! You all signed off on our ‘Facebook Data Use Policy’ giving us the right to access and use the information posted on our site!
And guess what, whether we liked it or not, they were in their rights. FB didn’t need to obtain ‘participants consent,’ as (after all) we had given the rights when we checked off on their terms of service box.
You’re our Subjects!
Similar to the plot line of the graphic novel parody, Facebucks & Dumb F*cks, followers for Zuckerberg have always been viewed as pawns, dating all the way back to its 2004 meager Harvard beginnings when Facebook’s founder derogatorily referred to us as “dumb f*cks”
Flash forward 10+ years and we see him and his team hitting home this same sentiment once again. Facebook data scientist Adam Kramer is listed as this study’s lead author. In an interview the company released a few years ago, Kramer was quoted as saying he joined Facebook because “Facebook data constitutes the largest field study in the history of the world.” It’s a charming reminder that Facebook isn’t just the place you go to see pictures of your friends’ kids or your racist uncle’s latest rant against the government—it’s also an exciting research lab, with all of us as potential test subjects."
Tsuppose there was a better way. . .
Treat us like lab rats, and sooner or later, we’re gonna rebel. And so we did. When the new social network Tsu (pronounced “Sue”) launched on October 14, 2014 with a $7 million investment led by Sancus Capital Prive, we all got a glimpse at a brand new way of social networking. The premise: this network actually shares its ad revenue with its user base — in exchange for the content they post to the site.
The New York-based firm, which is somewhat similar to Facebook at first blush, “only takes 10 percent of the ad revenue it generates, passing the other 90 percent onto its users, in the form of a royalty-based annuity,” according to founder Sebastian Sobczak.
In a recent Business News Daily interview when founder Sebastian Sobczak was asked as to explain how his platform differs from all his other social networking competitors, he was quick to point out that, “every other social network is basically separating content creators from the royalties they deserve. Tsu mimics the annuity stream for copyright holders of yesteryear before the Internet.”
Ralph Nader forecasted a Tsu Model in July, 2014
Months before Tsu launched and attracted 1 million users in a little over a month, consumer advocate Ralph Nader appeared to have precognitive abilities to forecast the need for a Tsu model back in July. In this news broadcast, he takes on Facebook, categorizing their ‘secret psychology experiment,’ as severely flawed, and asked that FB followers start a movement requesting that the network pay users for all the free content we lay down on their web pages.
Little did Mr. Nader know that the answer to request would be addressed so quickly and as expediently as with the launch of Tsu.
Sobczak probably ‘tsummed’ it up best when he noted: “Artists and musicians used to benefit from having their [work] published or their songs played on Tsu on the radio. The Internet has collapsed the value of content creators. We’re [Tsu] is the only mechanism that pops that inefficient bubble and rewards content creators with value in the digital age,”
So how does Zuckerberg et al now feel about his grandiose social experiment? Still as proud of himself today as he was back on March 25, 2014. Or, has Sobczak et al given him a run for his money (pun intended) and a substantial pause to rethink the make-up of his original mousetrap.
