Menlo Park, CA, August 6 – In a follow up paper to Facebook’s controversial emotional manipulation study, Facebook researchers have found that posts reporting and commenting on military or terrorist actions overseas have a statistically significant impact on people’s moods.In the methodology section of the paper, the authors described how the company quietly acquired Hamas for one billion dollars, and then proceeded to direct the timing and location of missile strikes and air raids. The acquisition bad been previously reported in the press as a hitherto inexplicable purchase of WhatsApp. The aim of the research was to assess in a real world laboratory the impact of such military actions on the social media activity of others, particularly American Jews, as a proxy indicator of their mood.
“By directing the timing of military actions we could quantitatively isolate the impact of a single rocket vs. clusters of attacks in a given timeframe,” researchers explained. Facebook learned for example that people increased their social media activity and used progressively stronger negative language as the number of rocket attacks increased.
They were also able to factor in the critical geographical element. Researchers found increased activity as rockets approached high population areas. “We expected this to be true but we now have scientific proof.”
In the end, Facebook found that by manipulating the rocket attacks over a long period of time, it could cause a large segment of American Jewry to do absolutely nothing but check Facebook and other social media and news sources.
With few exceptions, the study found that no pattern of rocket fire whatsoever had any emotional impact on most other demographics. “Some European groups experienced increased fire on Israel as a mood enhancer, rather than the expected depressor,” the study found.
As a control study, Facebook also acquired groups attacking Palestinians in Syria. Researchers found almost no emotional resonance for these action among any population groups.
As in the previous study, this new paper is expected to attract controversy on terms of adherence to standards of research ethics and human subjects protection. The Facebook institutional review board (IRB) had reviewed the study design and approved it on the grounds that “Hamas was going to escalate attacks sooner or later anyway. It is better to do so in a controlled manner that furthers human knowledge.” Also, “Facebook made best efforts to ensure that the rocket attacks would not actually hit civilian targets.” When asked about the unintended consequences, including Israeli counterattacks in Gaza, and a full scale invasion causing massive casualties on both sides, a Facebook spokesperson responded, “We cannot be held responsible for decisions made outside the scope of our research design. Who could predict that the Israelis would want to defend themselves?”
In the paper’s final recommendations for further study, the authors suggested that they may wish to acquire the IDF as well so they may control both sides of the conflict. “We want to test the ‘Golda Meir Hypothesis’ that Jews are more upset about killing than being killed; we suspect that this may not be true.”
(Guest author: Brian Sokol)
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