by @anarchyroll
7/3/2014
Social network sounds so much more appealing than electronic social emotional psychological experiment platform.
It was recently revealed that in 2012, Facebook manipulated the news feeds of just under 700,000 users, in order to measure the effects the news feed changes, on the mood(s) of the user(s).
The exact number of users who were unknowingly experimented on is 689,003. The exact amount of time was one week. Facebook showed less (than) positive posts from both friends and publication providers. Facebook did not get the consent of the users to do this experiment.
Facebook has both apologized, and offered no apologies for conducting this unauthorized psychological experiment.
Me personally, I find something like this to be disgusting and despicable. This is also a great learning lesson on a variety of levels. Let’s focus on how the results of the experiment show what social conditioning is.
Social conditioning is how we learn to think, perceive, and act through the media (movies, television, music, magazines, newspapers, social media websites/platforms, etc).
Facebook proved to themselves and to the world that social conditioning is a very real, very applicable, very effective social-emotional concept. Social conditioning shapes all of us, myself very much included. Facebook itself can be considered one big social conditioning machine.
It was also learned in the experiment that emotions are contagious. That people can in mass be manipulated to feel happier or sadder. What are the implications of this? What other large companies have performed experiments like this in the past? In the present?
I’m not going to bring this article down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. There are simply questions worth asking of ourselves internally as well as the external world around us. How much of what we think and feel is rooted in our own personal identity, integrity, character, and principles? How much of our identity, values, and consent has been manufactured?
Think about it. Be aware of it.
What is “it”? It in this case would be the non material aspects of what makes you up as a person. Your thoughts, feelings, and so on. Do you think, perceive, and act based on what you internally believe? Or are you being so manipulated by the world around you that you have no identity that isn’t a corporate brand or group think produced? No one is above being asked that question, especially not yours truly.
Think about it. Be aware of it.
Anarchy Journal Constitutional 