Facebook Manipulated Users’ Feeds for Experiment

Facebook Manipulated Users’ Feeds for Experiment

This story was originally published by

Were you feeling more happy or sad recently? Facebook conducted a psychological experiment of 689,003 users which showed the social media platform is able to tweak your mood by tweaking your news feed.




Forbes writes: Facebook conducted a massive psychological experiment on 689,003 users, manipulating their news feeds to assess the effects on their emotions.

The details of the experiment were published in an article entitled “Experimental Evidence Of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion Through Social Networks” published in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The short version is, Facebook has the ability to make you feel good or bad, just by tweaking what shows up in your news feed.

The experiment tested whether emotional contagion occurs between individuals on Facebook, a question the authors (a Facebook scientist and two academics) tested by using an automated system to reduce the amount of emotional content in Facebook news feeds. The authors found that when they manipulated user timelines to reduce positive expressions displayed by others “people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the opposite pattern occurred.”

Read the full article Gregory S. McNeal from Forbes here.

Check out the Facebook experiment here.




Please login with linkedin to comment

Kevin Lewis LinkedIn Online ads The Smith Family

Latest News

Boomtown’s Final Masterclass Of 2023 Attended By Almost 100 Media Reps
  • Media

Boomtown’s Final Masterclass Of 2023 Attended By Almost 100 Media Reps

Don’t treat regional media as a charity, but a real growth opportunity: That’s the message from Boomtown’s final masterclass of 2023, attended by almost 100 media industry representatives from across the nation. The masterclass was part of a series of educational sessions, delivered by Boomtown, the media collective championing advertising in regional Australia. The sessions […]

a data analyst using technology AI for working tool for data analysis Chatbot Chat with AI, using technology smart robot AI, artificial intelligence to generate something or Help solve work problems.
  • Advertising

Introducing Yahoo Blueprint: A New AI-powered Suite For Better Ad Performance & Optimisation

Yahoo Advertising has launched Yahoo Blueprint, a central AI suite that powers performance-based solutions within the Yahoo DSP. Fuelled by over 335 million logged in Yahoo users globally, Yahoo Blueprint enhances decisioning, makes AI more accessible, and serves as a results-driven guide throughout the campaign lifecycle to deliver better outcomes for advertisers. This new AI […]

Publicis Sapient Announces Launch Of PS Hummingbird, Expanding Its Generative AI And Cloud Capabilities With Microsoft
  • Technology

Publicis Sapient Announces Launch Of PS Hummingbird, Expanding Its Generative AI And Cloud Capabilities With Microsoft

Publicis Sapient, a digital business transformation company, today announced the launch of a new joint venture with Tquila called PS Hummingbird. Lead image: Nigel Vaz CEO of Publicis Sapient The partnership with Tquila, with whom Publicis Sapient has collaborated on several other ventures, will extend Publicis Sapient’s generative AI offerings powered by Microsoft Azure, Microsoft […]