It's not so much the studying of our data - indeed it's out there and being analyzed anyway - as the idea of manipulating communications from your friends so as to influence our moods. I'm not entirely clear how this was to be achieved, but it sounds like they were in effect meddling in our relationships to a degree. Maybe there was a marriage in your family that week, but Facebook has chosen to funnel you a little extra negativity. Gee, thanks. It's also a fact that corporations do try to manipulate our feelings all the time - so that we will buy their stuff. In fact, everybody manipulates everybody else's emotions all the time, either because we want something or simply by being there. We all know this and most of us are at least sort of used to it. But somehow, dispassionately stepping back and just playing with our feelings to see what happens seems a little extra creepy, especially for a company that we've come to look at as one that dispassionately relays our communications, almost like the phone company. Yes, I am logging in via Facebook. Maybe they'll read this, and start to get it.
In reply to "Facebook still won't say 'sorry' for mind games experiment" on CNN's website.
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