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For a small study that tweaked the newsfeeds of less than 1 percent of the Facebook population, the so-called “emotional contagion” experiment has triggered a wave of attention — most of it negative — aimed at the giant social network and how it may or may not be affecting its users. But if nothing else, the research has at least shone a spotlight on the potential risks of that kind of behavior. in one of the more recent developments, a former Facebook data scientist confirms what many users suspected all along: if you have ever used Facebook, then you have probably been experimented on. Whether that’s a bad thing is still up for debate. Andrew Ledvina was quoted in a Wall Street Journal followup on the emotional contagion study, which removed certain phrases from the newsfeeds of about 700,000 users to see if it changed their behavior.

Read the full story at Giga OM.

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