Oh, "manipulated". In no worse way than I'm manipulating you now by writing a hasty, little aggressively-toned response. Reading this comment will probably shift your mood a tiny percent down. Should I call my university's ethics board to ask if I can post this comment?

The whole "Facebook manipulating emotions" fiasco is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen happening in the field of social sciences in front of my own eyes. And it illustrates a very dangerous thing about science reporting - hyperbolizing. Almost nobody reads the primary sources (like actual papers), so when a journalist starts using strong words like "manipulated", it colors people's interpretations of the issue, leading them to severly overestimating the meaning of the issue - lo and behold, you can create a shitstorm out of thin air.

The way press was describing Facebook's "manipulating users' emotions" is akin to describing sneezing as an act of biological warfare. Scope matters.

If a user sees photos of their acquaintances going on vacations every day on their respective newsfeed he/she will most definitely feel down on their luck. Disregarding the ethics of the study completely, Facebook certainly forces people to have a negative outlook on their personal lives.

Again, what's the magnitude of this? The way I see it, they aimed for just enough above the noise floor that they could notice some aggregate effects, but low enough that it's below what you'd expect to see in your life at random, every now and then. I honestly think journalists and advertisers do much, much bigger damage here, by constantly exposing us to fabricated, unrealistic dreams of things we can't be and won't have. Compared to that, Facebook is a fresh breeze of honest life experience.

Anyway, I see how people can have problems with Facebook's actions here (though I personally don't, and I'd actually encourage more of such studies - it's an unique vector that could lead to actually meaningful results in social sciences). But the point is, it was totally overblown in media reports, and it still is being totally overblown by commenters on Hacker News. Facebook could not drive you to suicide on purpose by this, so please everyone, stop saying as if they could.