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A comment on Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be the final straw (2012). Parent comment

Re:Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be t... by dheera on Saturday April 17, 2021 @06:07PM (#26847851)
There's a difference between experimenting on the product, and conducting an experiment that deliberately puts one cohort of users in an environment hypothesized to create negative emotions.

A/B tests for the case where you honestly, in good faith, think both A or B could be good designs, but you don't know which one is better.

A/B testing is for product design changes, not psychology experiments. It is NOT for the primary intention of a psychology experiment with a group of subjects that didn't consent to a study, where either A or B has a suspected negative impact on emotions, and you're using A/B testing to confirm or deny that hypothesis.

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Re:Facebook deliberately made people sad. This ought to be t... by Aunche on Saturday April 17, 2021 @06:38PM (#26848062)
It's still a product decision though, especially the way the top comment frames it. It's just one that happens to be centered around emotional language. I suspect that an experiment that deals with more or less political content would have a similar effect on people's mental state.
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