Facebook experiment partially funded by the U.S. government
Posted by: Jon Ben-Mayor on 07/03/2014 10:19 AM
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When we first posted the story about the "experiment" Facebook conducted, (which the results now have an ominous name; Emotional Contagion) I wondered if there was anyone else involved in it.
It seems that there was, and it turns out that the study was funded in part by the Army Research Office according to a recent ABC7 article. This division of the US Army funds basic research which is in the military’s interest... Facebook et tu?
This leaves more questions than answers. Why would the US Army deem this as worthy of funding? One answer circles around civil unrest and how social media may play a part in inciting it or stopping it. That is a double edged sword if there ever was one. The government using it to cause a prescribed sentiment among the masses - which as of January 1, 2014 there were 1,310,000,000 active monthly users of Facebook according to Statistic Brain. That is a lot of people to manipulate for either good or bad reasons - bottom line, it's still manipulation.
Just food for thought.
It seems that there was, and it turns out that the study was funded in part by the Army Research Office according to a recent ABC7 article. This division of the US Army funds basic research which is in the military’s interest... Facebook et tu?This leaves more questions than answers. Why would the US Army deem this as worthy of funding? One answer circles around civil unrest and how social media may play a part in inciting it or stopping it. That is a double edged sword if there ever was one. The government using it to cause a prescribed sentiment among the masses - which as of January 1, 2014 there were 1,310,000,000 active monthly users of Facebook according to Statistic Brain. That is a lot of people to manipulate for either good or bad reasons - bottom line, it's still manipulation.
Just food for thought.
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