Facebook Has All the Power

[marmar]

from the Atlantic:


Facebook Has All the Power
Media critic Jay Rosen says a controversial mood study shows how few rights and how little control Facebook users actually have.

JULIE POSETTI | JUL 10 2014, 10:49 AM ET


Amid growing calls for formal investigations into Facebook's disturbing mood manipulation research, media scholar Jay Rosen has a reminder for journalists, editors, and personal social media users alike: "Facebook has all the power. You have almost none."

The experiment, conducted without users' knowledge or consent, manipulated the News Feeds of nearly 700,000 Facebook users with the purpose of testing mood responses to content alteration.

The Federal Trade Commission is considering two formal complaints about the 2012 Facebook research, published contentiously in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal—one from US Senator Mark Warner and another from the Electronic Privacy Information Centre. Meanwhile, in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office is investigating.

I caught up with Rosen, who teaches Journalism at NYU and is also an advisor to First Look Media.

.......(snip).......

While we know that Facebook has access to our content and our rights as users are increasingly being diminished, there is something particularly creepy about the knowledge that, without our consent, in an Orwellian fashion, we can be unwitting participants in psychological experimentation. What should this reality signal to Facebook users? Is it time to pull-back?

You have (almost) no rights. You have (almost) no control. You have no idea what they're doing to you or with you. You don't even know who's getting the stuff you are posting, and you're not allowed to know. Trade secret! As the saying goes: "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product." As long as you understand and accept all that, then proceed. With caution. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/facebook-has-all-the-power-you-have-almost-none/374215/

[Voice for Peace]

1. This doesn't bother me and it's not true that I have no rights or control.

If Facebook wants to do a psychological experiment on me,
that is their problem. I am the one who can choose my experience
of life, not them.

Facebook itself is an interesting experiment, fascinating.
I personally think it is affecting human evolution profoundly,
or will over time.

Do people truly expect that anything they do on line isn't
going to be exploited, in some way, by somebody?

[Orrex]

2. Scandalous!

Next thing you know, the Google ads on DU will be tailored in response to our postings.

The sky is falling!

[xchrom]

3. du rec.

[leftstreet]

4. How much can they learn from 10million grandkid photos?