#user manipulation

[marketxcel]

Hidden Traps in Plain Sight: Uncovering Dark Patterns in E-Commerce

Dive into the shadows of online shopping as we unveil the concealed tactics of Dark Patterns in E-Commerce. Discover how some websites use d

Hidden Traps in Plain Sight: Uncovering Dark Patterns in E-Commerce

Dive into the shadows of online shopping as we unveil the concealed tactics of Dark Patterns in E-Commerce. Discover how some websites use deceptive design to manipulate user behavior, and empower yourself to make informed choices in the digital marketplace.

[phillynessa]

SHOULD we worry that technology companies can secretly influence our emotions? Apparently so.

A study recently published by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, Cornell and Facebook suggests that social networks can manipulate the emotions of their users by tweaking what is allowed into a user’s news feed. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, changed the news feeds delivered to almost 700,000 people for a week without getting their consent to be studied. Some got feeds with more sad news, others received more happy news.

Research with human subjects is generally governed by strict ethical standards, including the informed consent of the people who are studied. Facebook’s generic click-through agreement, which almost no one reads and which doesn't mention this kind of experimentation, was the only form of consent cited in the paper. The subjects in the study still, to this day, have not been informed that they were in the study. If there had been federal funding, such a complacent notion of informed consent would probably have been considered a crime. Subjects would most likely have been screened so that those at special risk would be excluded or handled with extra care.