<div dir="ltr">As an initial aside to "<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">It already knows whether you are single or dating, the first school you went</span><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">to and whether you like or loathe Justin Bieber." the calm assumption that of course "we" always tell the truth always surprises me.</span><br>
</div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">This report reminds me very forcefully of two things - JG Ballard's short story "The Subliminal Man" which addresses among other things subliminal advertising and the consumer society , (you'll find a brief discussion <a href="http://www.ballardian.com/subliminal-billboards">here</a> if you are not familiar with the story) and a 1949 lyric from South Pacific<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You've_Got_to_Be_Carefully_Taught"> "You've got to be carefully taught"</a> </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">The Internet is a wonderful teaching tool, which can be a very frightening fact.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px">Deirdre</span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 30 June 2014 09:41, michael gurstein <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gurstein@gmail.com" target="_blank">gurstein@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a href="mailto:dewayne-net@warpspeed.com">dewayne-net@warpspeed.com</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:dewayne-net@warpspeed.com">dewayne-net@warpspeed.com</a>] On Behalf<br>
Of Dewayne Hendricks<br>
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2014 1:47 PM<br>
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net<br>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Facebook reveals news feed experiment to control<br>
emotions<br>
<br>
Facebook reveals news feed experiment to control emotions Protests over<br>
secret study involving 689,000 users in which friends' postings were moved<br>
to influence moods By Robert Booth Jun 29 2014<br>
<<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-n
ews-feeds" target="_blank">http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-n<br>
ews-feeds</a>><br>
<br>
It already knows whether you are single or dating, the first school you went<br>
to and whether you like or loathe Justin Bieber. But now Facebook, the<br>
world's biggest social networking site, is facing a storm of protest after<br>
it revealed it had discovered how to make users feel happier or sadder with<br>
a few computer key strokes.<br>
<br>
It has published details of a vast experiment in which it manipulated<br>
information posted on 689,000 users' home pages and found it could make<br>
people feel more positive or negative through a process of "emotional<br>
contagion".<br>
<br>
In a study with academics from Cornell and the University of California,<br>
Facebook filtered users' news feeds - the flow of comments, videos, pictures<br>
and web links posted by other people in their social network. One test<br>
reduced users' exposure to their friends' "positive emotional content",<br>
resulting in fewer positive posts of their own. Another test reduced<br>
exposure to "negative emotional content" and the opposite happened.<br>
<br>
The study concluded: "Emotions expressed by friends, via online social<br>
networks, influence our own moods, constituting, to our knowledge, the first<br>
experimental evidence for massive-scale emotional contagion via social<br>
networks."<br>
<br>
Lawyers, internet activists and politicians said this weekend that the mass<br>
experiment in emotional manipulation was "scandalous", "spooky" and<br>
"disturbing".<br>
<br>
On Sunday evening, a senior British MP called for a parliamentary<br>
investigation into how Facebook and other social networks manipulated<br>
emotional and psychological responses of users by editing information<br>
supplied to them.<br>
<br>
Jim Sheridan, a member of the Commons media select committee, said the<br>
experiment was intrusive. "This is extraordinarily powerful stuff and if<br>
there is not already legislation on this, then there should be to protect<br>
people," he said. "They are manipulating material from people's personal<br>
lives and I am worried about the ability of Facebook and others to<br>
manipulate people's thoughts in politics or other areas. If people are being<br>
thought-controlled in this kind of way there needs to be protection and they<br>
at least need to know about it."<br>
<br>
A Facebook spokeswoman said the research, published this month in the<br>
journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US,<br>
was carried out "to improve our services and to make the content people see<br>
on Facebook as relevant and engaging as possible".<br>
<br>
She said: "A big part of this is understanding how people respond to<br>
different types of content, whether it's positive or negative in tone, news<br>
from friends, or information from pages they follow."<br>
<br>
But other commentators voiced fears that the process could be used for<br>
political purposes in the runup to elections or to encourage people to stay<br>
on the site by feeding them happy thoughts and so boosting advertising<br>
revenues.<br>
<br>
In a series of Twitter posts, Clay Johnson, the co-founder of Blue State<br>
Digital, the firm that built and managed Barack Obama's online campaign for<br>
the presidency in 2008, said: "The Facebook 'transmission of anger'<br>
experiment is terrifying."<br>
<br>
[snip]<br>
<br>
Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <<a href="http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/" target="_blank">http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/</a>><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>____________________________________________________________<br>
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:<br>
<a href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a><br>
To be removed from the list, visit:<br>
<a href="http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing" target="_blank">http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing</a><br>
<br>
For all other list information and functions, see:<br>
<a href="http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance" target="_blank">http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance</a><br>
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:<br>
<a href="http://www.igcaucus.org/" target="_blank">http://www.igcaucus.org/</a><br>
<br>
Translate this email: <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate_t" target="_blank">http://translate.google.com/translate_t</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
</div>