Facebook is always trying to alter people’s behavior, says former data scientist

We’re hardly ever fast to wake up to what might be going on with our data. But once in a while, we’re suddenly roused and make a noise.

Such has been the case with the revelations surrounding Facebook’s manipulation of the News Feeds of almost 700,000 people in order to see if it would make them happier or sadder, depending on the content presented.

Now, a former member of Facebook’s Data Science team has revealed that, for much of its existence since 2007, the team operated with seemingly little supervision.

Andrew Ledvina, who was on Facebook’s team from February 2012 to July 2013, told the Wall Street Journal: “There’s no review process, per se. Anyone on that team could run a test. They’re always trying to alter people’s behavior.”

This, if true, might make for a profound surprise to those who somehow believed their data was, indeed, their data.

Ledvina suggested that tests were conducted with such regularity that some scientists worried that the same people’s data was being analyzed more than once.

Since the controversial study on human emotions, Facebook has reportedly stiffened its procedures. However, since 2007, the Data Science team has reportedly run hundreds of experiments without users’ consent or even knowledge.

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