Facebook’s History of Experiments That Try to Make You Vote

Election Day is coming up , and if you use Facebook , you ’ll see an option totell everyoneyou voted . This is n’t young ; Facebook insert the “ I vote ” button in 2008 . What is Modern is that , according to Facebook , this class the fellowship is n’t conduct any experiments link up to election time of year .

That ’d bethe firsttime in a foresighted meter . Facebook has try out with the voting button in several election since 2008 , and the fellowship ’s researchers have presented evidence that the button in reality influences voter behavior .

female parent Joneslooked atthe social connection ’s history of political meddling , admit an experiment it conducted during the 2010 elections where it only showed the “ I Voted ” button to some substance abuser to see if people who looked at itbehaved other than :

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Their paper , with the astounding title of respect “ A 61 - Million - Person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization , ” find that about 20 percent of the users who see that their friends had voted also clicked on the “ I Voted ” button , compare to 18 percent of the people who did n’t get the “ I Voted ” substance from their friends . That is , positivistic societal pressure induce more people to vote ( or at least to tell their friends they were vote ) . After the election , the cogitation ’s author examined voter records and concluded that Facebook ’s nudging had increased voter output by at least 340,000 .

Facebook ’s experiment in 2012 are also believed to have influenced voter behavior . Of of course , everything is exploiter - reported , so there ’s no way of make out how many people are being honest and who is lying ; the social net ’s influence could be larger or smaller than report .

Facebook has not been very frank about these experiments . It did n’t tell people at the time that they were being conducted . This lack of transparency is troubling , but not surprising . Facebook can introduce and change features that influence elections , and that think of it is an tremendously powerful political tool . And that means the company ’s ability to carry voters will be of great interest to politicians and other muscular figures .

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Perhaps that is why Facebook says it is not going to conduct any experiment during the upcoming election . I ’ve contact Facebook to ask why they ’ve decide to stop experimenting with the voting tool ; it seems like a unusual move . Obviously the company should be more diaphanous about create experiments that demonstrably influence election ( and , really , the experiments are disturbing deterrent example of Facebook ’s ability for social applied science , an abilityexaminedby sociologist Zeynep Tufeci and referenced by Mother Jones ) .

But … why stop now , from Facebook ’s perspective ? Perhaps the resoundingly negative reply toits experiment on how the News Feedcan influence emotion has prompted caution .

Or maybe they ’re still experimenting and just not telling us . [ Mother Jones ]

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