A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization

Human behavior is thought to spread through face-to-face social networks, but it is difficult to distinguish the effects of social impacts in observational studies [9, 10, 11, 12 ],[13]. 19. Here we report the results of a randomized controlled trial of political mobilization information posted to 61 million Facebook users during the 2010 US Parliamentary election. The results show that this information directly affects political self-expression, information retrieval, and the actual voting behavior of millions of people. In addition, the message will affect not only the user who received it, but also friends of friends and friends of friends. The influence of social communication on actual voting is larger than the direct influence of information itself, and almost all communication is done between "close friends" which are likely to be face to face. These results show that a strong link helps spread online and real actions in human social networks.

Academia and Facebook researchers are collaborating to test whether the messages seen on Facebook affect their behavior. For example, during the 2010 election period, "61 million social impacts and political mobilization experiments", Facebook users got the opportunity to "tell voting friends by clicking the" vote "button. If a user is associated with a friend who has already voted, the likelihood that the user will click on the button will be 2% higher. More controversial is the fact that in the survey of "emotional transmission through social networks" in 2014, the balance between positive and negative information seen in 689,000 Facebook users was manipulated is. Researchers concluded, "Some of the first experimental evidence supports a controversial argument that emotions may spread throughout the network and the impact of operations is small."

Human behavior is thought to spread through face-to-face social networks, but it is difficult to distinguish the effects of social impacts in observational studies [9, 10, 11, 12 ],[13]. 19. Here we report the results of a randomized controlled trial of political mobilization information posted to 61 million Facebook users during the 2010 US Parliamentary election. The results show that this information directly affects political self-expression, information retrieval, and the actual voting behavior of millions of people. In addition, the message will affect not only the user who received it, but also friends of friends and friends of friends. The influence of social communication on actual voting is larger than the direct influence of information itself, and almost all communication is done between "close friends" which are likely to be face to face.

But search and social media companies can certainly create new influences. During the 2010 U.S. parliamentary elections, Facebook researchers are unrelated to them - send messages to 61 million users who want to vote and they will get 34 million additional votes I found out that I could do it. But if Harvard's law professor Jonathan Zittrain suggests that Facebook did not push "voting" messages to random 61 million users? Instead, you can use a social network to manage extensive information for all subscribers and virtually deliver specific messages to supporters or enemies of specific laws or candidates. Facebook can overthrow elections; Zittrain calls it "bad digital". If you think that a company like a social media giant will never do this, consider Google's way to mobilize users to the Secure Online Privacy Act and PROTECT IP Act, or "SOPA-PIPA" please.