Take Note, Facebook: How Colleges Are Training Designers To Treat Users Like More Than Lab Rats

Students at MIT, Stanford, and elsewhere are learning to build technology products with user well-being in mind.Facebook sparked outrage this summer when it published results of a study conducted on unwitting users. The study looked at whether people who were shown more positive or negative words in friends' posts would write more positive or negative words themselves, apparently without considering the ethics of manipulating users' emotions. (Indeed, users shown more negative words were more negative in their posts and vice versa.) "Was this designed to create maximum benefits for the end user? I can't really see that anywhere in that research," says Marc Smith, a sociologist who spent 10 years as a researcher at Microsoft. "Where is it saying, 'This is how we will now deal with people who are borderline depressed, we're going to start steering them toward happier stuff?'"Read Full Story Continue reading at 'Fast Company'

[ Fast Company | 2014-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #study conducted #vice versa #end user

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Facebook Serves Up User Data to Measure Ads on Others' Sites, Apps

Google was supposed to uproot digital advertising's foundation. But Facebook may beat the search giant to the punch.Confirming what has become advertising's latest worst-kept secret, Facebook said it will begin applying its user data to ads shown outside the social network through a retooled... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2014-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The 100 Books Facebook Users Love

What titles most shaped the site's readers? Harry Potter, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Lord of the Rings—and the Bible. Continue reading at The Atlantic

[ The Atlantic | 2014-09-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Recommended Reading: Colombia's high-tech World Cup training and testing Facebook

Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read. Colombia's High-Tech... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2014-07-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #recommended reading #long-form writing


Sneaky Facebook Study on Users' Emotions Draws Ire

If you use Facebook and found yourself momentarily feeling either better or worse in early 2012, an algorithm may have caused your shift in mood. And that's what has some social media users upset today. A controversial research study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2014-06-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook messed with users' emotions--for science!

Facebook has gotten plenty of flack for its privacy practices, but here’s a new way to distrust the social media service: It may be playing with your emotions. As reported by The A.V. Club, in January 2012, Facebook adjusted its newsfeed algorithm for several hundred thousand users to see how... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2014-06-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #emotional state #national academy #nonverbal cues #body language


Facebook, Google and Yahoo now say when the US government requests user content (update: Microsoft too)

Last week, the US government finally relented on letting technology companies publish more detail about national security requests; today, some bigger firms are taking advantage of the looser rules. Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Yahoo have updated ... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2014-02-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #taking advantage


Official Facebook app (finally!) available for Windows 8.1 users

For all the improvements Microsoft has made in bolstering the Windows Store's app selection, one insistent question has held back the company's dreams of grandeur: "Yeah, but where's Facebook?" Indeed, the largest social network in the land has been a conspicuous no-show in Microsoft app... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2013-10-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook's new mobile ad format keeps users coming back to familiar apps

Ads for mobile apps are frequently ineffective after the first viewing -- once users install a given app, they rarely have incentives to try the software again. Facebook may have found a way to sustain customers' interest through its new deep linking ad format, however. The approach takes... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2013-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Governments Requested Information On 38,000 Facebook Users In The First Half Of 2013

Facebook received about 38,000 data requests from government agents in 71 countries in the first half of 2013, according to the company's first Global Government Requests Report, which it published today. The report comprises both criminal and national security requests made in the first six... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2013-08-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook reveals 20m mobile users in June

Facebook has published UK-specific user data, broken down for the first time into daily and monthly, and total and mobile user numbers. Continue reading at Media Week

[ Media Week | 2013-08-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook, With a Focus on Mobile, Works on Project for News Via Users

Facebook Inc. FB -3.51% is aiming to become a newspaper for mobile devices. The social network has been quietly working on a service, internally called Reader, that displays content from Facebook users and publishers in a new visual format tail ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher

[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-06-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Life after Facebook: How Brit + Co became profitable after seeing Facebook traffic plummet

After taking a hit with the rest of the digital media industry during the Facebook and Google advertising duopoly, founder Brit Morin is taking a more hands-on and themed approach to creating the site's content to ready the brand for a comeback. The post Life after Facebook: How Brit + Co became... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2020-03-09 04:00:06 UTC ]
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Facebook’s Jennifer Howard reveals best practices for engaging an audience with Facebook Watch

  Jennifer Howard, Managing Director of Entertainment, Media, and Tech at Facebook, sits down with Ad Age Associate Publisher Heidi Waldusky to discuss how Facebook Watch is changing the way its 140 million daily users consume content—and how marketers can take advantage of it. A custom... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2019-10-02 19:52:00 UTC ]
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Facebook Is Testing Subscriptions on Its Facebook Watch Video Destination

Facebook will begin testing subscriptions on its Facebook Watch video destination in the U.S., with initial publishing partners BritBoxTV, CollegeHumor Dropout, MotorTrend On Demand and Tastemade Plus. The social network would not provide details on payments by publishers or on subscription... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2019-08-08 18:05:58 UTC ]
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This dying bookstore has a proposal for NYC: Just treat us like you treated Amazon

Book Culture, based in the same Queens neighborhood where Amazon wanted to set up shop, says it will be forced to close if the city or state doesn’t offer assistance. In New York City’s Long Island City neighborhood, down the road from where Amazon tried (and failed) to build a “second... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2019-06-26 15:56:45 UTC ]
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ProPublica’s Facebook-Monitoring Political Ad Tool (Which Facebook Fought) is Alive Again with a New Home at the Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail is the new home to the Facebook Political Ad Collector, a browser extension that ProPublica built and Continue reading at Editor & Publisher

[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-06-07 18:45:03 UTC ]
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Facebook in 2015: Pivot to video! Facebook today: Local news is dead!

Facebook paints a bleak picture for the media industry, while ignoring its own role in publishing’s demise. Benevolent Doctor Facebook today gave the country a very grave diagnosis via a blog post. The company has found that–wait for it–local news is dying. In fact, Facebook says that about... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2019-03-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers are wrestling with Facebook’s desire to own Facebook-funded Watch shows

Facebook wants to own more of the shows it subsidizes for Facebook Watch, but publishers are not always willing to give those rights away. The post Publishers are wrestling with Facebook’s desire to own Facebook-funded Watch shows appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2018-05-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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London Book Fair 2018: Why the Problem with Facebook, Is Facebook

In the the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, PW talks to University of Virginia Media Studies professor Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of the forthcoming 'Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy' (Oxford University Press) about Facebook’s sprawling influence in... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook Watch publishers look for revenue sources beyond Facebook’s subsidies

Publishers are eyeing everything from sponsored and custom video series to licensing and even merchandising for their (self-funded) Facebook Watch shows. The post Facebook Watch publishers look for revenue sources beyond Facebook’s subsidies appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2018-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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