Oddbean new post about | logout
 He deserves a lot of credit

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-apologises-psychological-experiments-on-users
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-congress-libra-cryptocurrency-2019-10 
 what's a psychological experiment? A/B testing?  
 They were doing a study on how manipulating the algorithm could result in a change in users' emotional states 
 Sounds evil when it's put that way. But, consider what practically every business does every day with A/B testing. Literally playing on your emotions to buy. Not defending FB, but they sure do get a lot of focus when everyone is basically doing the same thing. 
 That's very fair. The scale is probably the thing that makes it so clearly unethical because you're not casting a line into a crowded pond anymore, you're competely changing the environment the fish swim in. 
 So Zuck is CIA? That’s what I read.