Facebook’s News Feed experiment received a huge blow from its social media networkers. With the new rainbow coloured profile picture that celebrates equality of marriage turned us into ‘lab rats’ again? Facebook is probably tracking all those who are using its new tool to change the profile picture, believes The Atlantic.
The news site reached out to social network for an answer, and a Facebook spokesperson replied, “It’s not an experiment or test. Everyone sees the same thing.” Facebook has conducted studies in the past, but now it has its own tool that allows showing political support with a profile picture. Moreover, in its response Facebook didn’t really deny that it isn’t tracking users.
The report also points out a study back in March 2013 named “The Diffusion of Support in an Online Social Movement” wherein researchers analysed the factors predicting support for marriage equality on Facebook. One of the factors was a person changing his or her profile photo to the red equals sign.
Similarly, in response to Gizmodo, a Facebook spokesperson said, “This was not an experiment or test, but rather something that enables people to show their support of the LGBTQ community on Facebook. We aren’t going to use this as a way to target ads and the point of this tool is not to get information about people.”
Last year, Facebook’s ‘emotional’ experiment where the company altered the content on the News Feeds of close to 700,000 users to check how positive or negative content affected their emotions, didn’t go down well with its users.
While changing your profile picture is a great way of celebrating, but you should still know that Facebook is probably tracking.
