OKCupid, Facebook show we are just signed-up lab rats for their Internet experiments

This week OKCupid **admitted to have deliberately shown users wrong matches** to see what kind of reaction it sparks off. The company also admitted to more experiments, which calls into question the site’s features. With Facebook too coming under the scanner for **its earlier News Feed manipulation** , the Internet, it would seem, has become a giant test lab with us, its users the subjects.   “It’s morning and I feel good about waking up. Why shouldn’t I? This is the best time of my life. I saw a ton of new matches on OkCupid before heading to bed; time to catch up. But first Facebook, of course. Look at all those happy shiny posts on Facebook. Twitter on the next tab. Hey look 200 favourites for that one tweet that I thought was pathetic. And look at the number of +1s on my YouTube blog. This is an awesome day. Nothing can go wrong.”   “Is it morning? I don’t want to stop sleeping. This is the worst time; single, and still no luck on that new dating site, despite putting up my best profile picture. Perhaps some good news on Facebook. Why did I even think about it? It’s pretty depressing here. And Twitter won’t give me any joy either. Gonna put up a sad video today. This is the worst year.”   That’s just a very simplistic take on what could be going through Average Joe 1 and Average Joe 2’s minds right now, as they make their daily Internet stops. The Internet is no longer a place for boundless information, joy and entertainment.   Because now it’s just a Petri dish and we are the microbes. Our ideas ‘allowed’ to evolve by companies that have made billions by claiming a piece of the virtual land. We are lab rats, experimented on, made to feel special or despondent at will by the invisible ~strings~ claws manipulating our moods.   Using our data, Big Internet acts righteous about its sly experiments, **offers terrible scripted apologies** after toying with our feelings and emotions.   Facebook’s admission was pretty bold, if revolting. It made me sick to the stomach, thinking about a particularly vulnerable friend who might have been a target, just as it makes me happy thinking a friend might have experienced happiness, even if it was manipulated.  Some people said, oh well look at them **they are being honest and telling us what they can do** . Facebook is being open.   Actually I don’t think Facebook had any option but to come clean, seeing as the experiments were eventually published as part of academic research at Cornell University. If anything Facebook has been decidedly closed about their experiments by not telling us **what else has been going on in their Data Sciences division.**   Now OKCupid’s claim is going a step further than Facebook. The dating site admitted to manipulating the matches it shows users, making them believe these are the right people. Better still, it says the experiments will continue, because everyone does it. “We use math to get you dates” the site says on its About Us page. That’s presumably the 2+2=5 branch of mathematics, and I am not sure how good a date it would be if your match isn’t really a match.   Moreover, this is the same OKCupid that became **so riled up about Mozilla appointing Brendan Eich as CEO,** that **it urged users to boycott Firefox as a browser** . It’s always great to come off as a website that has morals and ethics, even if you are actually slyly messing with people’s heads.   You may wonder is OKCupid really that big, or you may not have even heard of it at all. But the company behind OKCupid, InterActive Corp or IAC, also runs About.com, Ask, CollegeHumor, Dictionary.com, PriceRunner, The Daily Beast, UrbanSpoon and even Vimeo. Besides OKCupid it also runs online dating heavyweights Match.com, Tinder, Twoo, Chemistry.com and lesser known sites such as Meetic and Peoplemedia.   So if one site experimented on its users, can we reasonably expect the others to not have done the same? In fact, OKCupid’s blog says every website experiments. Imagine the magnitude of control IAC has over users on the Internet, who are looking for love. And imagine the consequences of an experiment gone wrong when it comes to love or companionship. Unlike Facebook’s positive or negative emotion scale, OKCupid’s experiments could have had a more severe impact. And of course, they will continue.   This is a great problem for the Internet of today. We are all basically signed-up lab rats, **who have consented through a lengthy, legalese-ridden privacy policy** and terms of service. And each day the pool of ‘researchers’ grows.