Facebook Faces Government Probe Over Study That Manipulated Users' Emotions Without Telling Them

Facebook faces a government investigation in Europe over its study of whether manipulating people's news feeds could change their emoti Reportedly recently,Facebook's experiment tweaked the algorithms of nearly 700,000 unwitting users, causing people to see an abnormally low number of either positive or negative posts. People who saw more negative posts wrote more negative posts, and vice versa, showing that their mood was being affected by the kinds of things they were reading on Facebook.

Now, governments in the U.K. and Ireland look set to investigate, according to the Financial Times:

The Information Commissioner's Office said it was probing the experiment and planned to ask Facebook questions after widespread outrage when it was revealed at the weekend. The regulator said it would also be in contact with the Irish data protection body, because Facebook has its European headquarters in Dublin.

A spokesperson for the ICO said it was too early to tell exactly what part of the law Facebook may have infringed. The regulator looks at how much personal data are used and whether users have given their consent.

Facebook won't be helped by the fact that the company didn't alter its terms of service to disclose to users that their posts would be used for research until four months after the experiment took place, according to Forbes:

Four months after this study happened, in May 2012, Facebook made changes to its data use policy, and that's when it introduced this line about how it might use your information: "For internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement." Facebook helpfully posted a "red-line" version of the new policy, contrasting it with the prior version from September 2011 - which did not mention anything about user information being used in "research."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg need not lie awake stressing over the outcome of any probe, however. The ICO only has the power to levy a fine of up to £500,000 ($857,000), the FT says - which is pocket change in terms of the $3 billion that the social network holds on its balance sheet.

Facebook reportedly building Flipboard-style mobile reading app

There have been murmurs of Facebook
building a mobile reading app; tonight,
that talk is getting a little louder. The
Wall Street Journal claims that the
social network has spent the past year
working on a dedicated story browser,
codenamed Reader, that would curate
articles in a Flipboard-like interface.
While most other details of the
rumored project aren't available, it's
reportedly important enough that Mark
Zuckerberg is closely involved. The
company isn't commenting on its
plans, but there's reason to believe
that Reader is more than just idle
speculation: Facebook recently added
hashtag support as a "first step"
toward helping users track topics.
Accordingly, the company's Graph API
includes some unused RSS code that
could prove relevant for browsing
story feeds. There's no guarantee that
we'll see the app soon, if at all. When
mobile is becoming the cornerstone of
Facebook's business, however, we
wouldn't completely rule out Reader's
existence.

Facebook can make you mentally ill: Study

Facebook and other social networking
sites may affect your mental health by
causing psychotic episodes and
delusions, researchers warn.
As Internet access becomes
increasingly widespread, so do related
psychopathologies such as Internet
addiction and delusions related to the
technology and to virtual
relationships, according to the study.
Computer communications such as
Facebook and chat groups are an
important part of this story, said Dr Uri
Nitzan of Tel Aviv University's
Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the
Shalvata Mental Health Care Center.
According to Nitzan, patients shared
some crucial characteristics,
including loneliness or vulnerability
due to the loss of or separation from a
loved one, relative inexperience with
technology, and no prior history of
psychosis or substance abuse.
In each case, a connection was found
between the gradual development and
exacerbation of psychotic symptoms,
including delusions, anxiety,
confusion, and intensified use of
computer communications.
The good news is that all of the
patients, who willingly sought out
treatment on their own, were able to
make a full recovery with proper
treatment and care, Nitzan said.
While technologies such as Facebook
have numerous advantages, some
patients are harmed by these social
networking sites, which can attract
those who are lonely or vulnerable in
their day-to-day lives or act as a
platform for cyber-bullying and other
predatory behaviour, he said.
All three of Nitzan's patients sought
refuge from a lonely situation and
found solace in intense virtual
relationships.
Although these relationships were
positive at first, they eventually led to
feelings of hurt, betrayal, and invasion
of privacy, said Nitzan.
"All of the patients developed
psychotic symptoms related to the
situation, including delusions
regarding the person behind the
screen and their connection through
the computer," he said.
Two patients began to feel vulnerable
as a result of sharing private
information, and one even experienced
tactile hallucinations, believing that
the person beyond the screen was
physically touching her.
Some of the problematic features of
the Internet relate to issues of
geographical and spatial distortion,
the absence of non-verbal cues, and
the tendency to idealise the person
with whom someone is
communicating, becoming intimate
without ever meeting face-to-face.
All of these factors can contribute to a
patient's break with reality, and the
development of a psychotic state.
The study was published in the Israel
Journal of Psychiatry and Related
Sciences.