Tomahawk, WI 07/02/2014 (Basicsmedia) – Once again, the social networking site, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is dealing with the users concerns as their privacy is being invaded. According to a Bloomberg report, a Facebook researcher has apologized for an experiment that briefly manipulated with what 700,000 users read on their news feeds.
Emotional Exploit
Further the report reveals that Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) altered the negative and positive posts that users saw on their feed during January, 2012 as a part of the study to examine how emotions can spread on social media. The result of the experiment, which was published in the National Academy of Sciences showed that people, who saw fewer positive posts tend to express more negative emotions in their post and vice versa. Researchers said that they wanted to observe how emotions could scatter on social media, without direct contact. Further, another Bloomberg report noted that Adam Kramer, who is a Facebook data scientist, and one among the authors of the study apologized on his Facebook page as he wrote, “very sorry for the way the paper described the research and any anxiety it caused.”
Users Outraged; Facebook Cool
Some users were extremely outraged with the study stating that it is a clear breach of their privacy, while some of the Facebook users took to Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) to express their anguish over the study. In the meanwhile, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s Mark Zukerberg is already ready with his defense on the concern as the company said that there was no unnecessary collection of data and it was only about influencing the way users feel. Further, the company said that it carefully assessed the kind of research they allow to be done on their platform and said that it maintains a strict internal review process. However, most of the researchers are condemning the Facebook study as according to them the research without consent amounts to unethical conduct on its part.