By Dino Sossi
https://dinosossi.wordpress.com/2020/05/29/hooked-downplaying-online-experimentation/
Figure #1. Wire me in! (Graphis Competitions, 2011)
Many people are surprised, even shocked, at the amount of experimentation happening in online spaces. This includes social media platforms as detailed in the video What Makes You Click (VPRO, 2016).
But should we really be surprised?
Online experimentation should not surprise anyone using digital platforms. Ever since the inception of social media, some form of experiments on users has been conducted. Otherwise, how else would you get people addicted to your app?
Knowing that regular users may not be comfortable with this overt form of manipulation, many social media platforms downplay their behavior as a form of scientific research. In short, they are conducting scientific research, so it must have social utility, hence justifying its behavior.
For example, Facebook received a great deal of push back for manipulating people’s emotions on its site in… 2014 (Hill, 2014)! This feels like a veritable lifetime ago given the rapid speed of today’s 24-hour news cycle and relentless churn of social media.
Who? Me? People Have Become the Product
Figure #2. Experiments gone awry? (Scanlan, 2018)
There is a pat line that has been repeated over and over again during the past several years, especially as public concern with social media has surfaced: “If something’s free, that means you’re the product” (Stelter, 2018 in Oremus, 2018).
We should make the safe assumption that our attention (or engagement as the cool kids call it) to social media is tied to the sales of advertisements. Social media platforms relentlessly experiment so that we spend more time on their sites, see more ads, buy more products, and satisfy their advertisers. Given this, is experimentation anything other than a foregone conclusion?
We get what we pay for.
TLDR: The Problem with EULAs
You might think that platforms need to respond to this. To provide themselves legal cover and even a moral defense, social media platforms and technology companies offer EULAs: end user license agreements. The response of platforms to user complaints about being subjected to experimentation is something along the line of, “Of course we were collecting, using, sharing, and selling your data. You signed off on it through agreeing to a EULA when you joined the platform.”
But there have been problems with EULAs since the first social media sites have started. See the EULA Hall of Shame. This article’s year of publication? 2012 (Newman, 2012)!
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
References:
Graphis Competitions. (2011). Brain electrodes. Graphis Competitions. https://www.graphis.com/entry/a7640427-b785-4989-bb7b-69784f790b10/
Hill, K. (2014, June 28). Facebook manipulated 689,003 users’ emotions for science. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-689003-users-emotions-for-science/#7534c00c197c
Newman, J. (2012, February 6). Top EULA gotchas: Website fine-print hall of shame. PC World. https://www.pcworld.com/article/249396/top_eula_gotchas_website_fine_print_hall_of_shame.html
Oremus, W. (2018, April 28). Are you really the product? The history of a dangerous idea. Salon. https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/are-you-really-facebooks-product-the-history-of-a-dangerous-idea.html
Scanlan, A. (2018, December 7). experiment. The Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania. https://www.diocesecpa.org/blog/2018/12/07/experiment/
Stelter, B. (2018, March 19). Facebook suspends data firm; Trump launches attack on Mueller probe; AT&T and Justice Department face off in court. CNN Newsroom. http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1803/19/cnr.02.html
VPRO (2016, December 18). What makes you click. VPRO [Video documentary]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69JXP4tnBMo&list=PLuECoz9_QThRRrXxTpw1Yt1mGLbr9QhM6&index=1 [47 minutes]
dino sossi 