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Facebook is learning the hard way that with great data comes great responsibility

Facebook released the results of a study where its data scientists skewed the positive or negative emotional content that appeared in the news feeds of nearly 700,000 users over the course of a week in order to study their reaction.

The study was almost certainly legal, a line in the terms of service users agree to when they sign up cedes control of data for “data analysis, testing, [and] research”. But the reaction from many users and commentators has been pretty negative.


You’ll Never Check Facebook Again (It’ll Check You)

With Home, Facebook has crossed the line between something people check to become something that’s always on, checking in with us, fighting for attention, waving people we know in our face. Rather than a tool we use to talk to others, the phone, thanks to Facebook, has become something that communicates to us. And it’s Facebook that gets to do the talking.

How Facebook Teams Up With Data Brokers to Show You Targeted Ads

This post explained where data brokers get their data, what information they share with Facebook, or what this means for your privacy. Who has your information, how they get it, and what they do with it?

Facebook Is Using You

The magnitude of online information Facebook has available about each of us for targeted marketing is stunning.

Facebook made $3.2 billion in advertising revenue last year, 85 percent of its total revenue. Yet Facebook’s inventory of data and its revenue from advertising are small potatoes compared to some others. Google took in more than 10 times as much.

Social Steganography: Learning to Hide in Plain Sight

As far as Carmen’s concerned, she has nothing to hide from her mother so she’s happy to have her mom as her ‘friend’ on Facebook. While Carmen welcomes her mother’s presence, she also knows her mother overreacts. Carmen will avoid posting things that have a high likelihood of mother misinterpretation. This can make communication tricky at times and Carmen must work to write in ways that are interpreted differently by different people.

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