Facebook Will Pay Users To Log Off Before 2020 Election (nypost.com) 67
Facebook is offering users money to refrain from using the site and Instagram in the weeks leading up to the bitterly contested November elections. The New York Post reports: To assess the impact of social media on voting, the company will pay selected members up to $120 to deactivate their accounts beginning at the end of September. "Anyone who chooses to opt-in -- whether it's completing surveys or deactivating FB or IG for a period of time -- will be compensated," Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois tweeted last week. "This is fairly standard for this type of academic research." The Silicon Valley giant said it expects 200,000 to 400,000 people to take part.
"Representative, scientific samples of people in the US will be selected and invited to participate in the study. Some potential participants will see a notice in Facebook or Instagram inviting them to take part in the study," Facebook said. "Study samples will be designed to ensure that participants mirror the diversity of the US adult population, as well as users of Facebook and Instagram." The results of the study are expected to be released sometime next year.
"Representative, scientific samples of people in the US will be selected and invited to participate in the study. Some potential participants will see a notice in Facebook or Instagram inviting them to take part in the study," Facebook said. "Study samples will be designed to ensure that participants mirror the diversity of the US adult population, as well as users of Facebook and Instagram." The results of the study are expected to be released sometime next year.
Can they pay me to never join? (Score:5, Informative)
So, far, I have a pretty good run going with that.
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More likely they'll pay people who've posted links to Snopes, etc., in the past when memes have been doing the rounds.
Let's keep the populace as gullible as possible and may the sleaziest candidate win!
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I've been tempted to join Facebook at least 50 thousand times so far but I've never subscribed either.
Facebook, please send payment to the amount of 6 million dollars ASAP, kthxbye.
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they may to pay trump 120M-120T to shut up! (Score:2)
they may to pay trump 120M-120T to shut up!
Something smells. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bribery and censorship disguised as academic research.
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If you believe the conspiracy theories they just ban all people with X political views anyway, so why would they need to pay them?
This is obviously an experiment to determine the dollar value of engagement during election time so they can say to politicians "look how valuable our platform is compared to TV/newspapers/Twitter etc."
Re:Something smells. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nailed it. You know there's zero chance this is meant to be a real study. It's all about pushing the "correct" message and silencing the "incorrect" one.
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When your president spits on your war veterans, there is an incorrect message it is not a question of democrats vs republicans. Impeach that orange retard and throw him in prison for the rest of his miserable life.
Re: Something smells. (Score:2)
When your president spits on your war veterans
The Atlantic's claim is falling apart very rapidly.
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Nailed it. You know there's zero chance this is meant to be a real study. It's all about pushing the "correct" message and silencing the "incorrect" one.
Right, Facebook doesn't care about money and profits and is willing to pay $24-48 million dollars to "push the correct message." Yes, this sounds like Zuckerberg ... not!
This study may not be a true study, or it may be a poorly designed or executed study. However, there is zero chance that they are giving up that much money in the interests of pushing any political agenda.
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They pay more than that in lobbying money to "push the correct message" in congress. Don't think a simple expenditure means this isn't about pushing an agenda of some sort. That's big money to me or you, but to them it's the equivalent of buying an extra cup of coffee.
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They pay more than that in lobbying money to "push the correct message" in congress. Don't think a simple expenditure means this isn't about pushing an agenda of some sort. That's big money to me or you, but to them it's the equivalent of buying an extra cup of coffee.
Facebook does pay a lot of money for lobbying, but their "political" message is whatever bringing in revenue and profit for Facebook. They're willing to support any and all political message as long as it benefits their top or bottom financial lines. Never underestimate the love of money. Greed always squashes ostensible ideology.
Re:Something smells. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this how they get those that have a voting message they don't agree with off their platform around election time? Bribery and censorship disguised as academic research.
That is troubling...when outright lies and half-truths are considered nothing but innocent voting messages.
When lies and fraud are considered just another opinion or alternative facts.
When calling a liar a liar and demanding evidence is considered censorship.
Social media is destroying our way of life. It is informational cancer.
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Yes, only thoroughly vetted and approved authorities should be allowed to speak freely. Otherwise people might hear other people's lies too.
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Because your friends really decide their vote based on your Facebook spam.
Highly targeted lies presented as real news media can affect votes/turnout just enough in swing states with tiny margins, when you put the resources of an entire nation behind the project. But taking a few hundred thousand democrats or republicans off Facebook would probably change about a dozen votes nation-wide.
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If someone values money more than the reach of their free speech, it sounds like a win-win situation for everyone.
Serves everyone well.
Nice try, Zuck... (Score:5, Funny)
"To assess the impact of social media on voting, the company will pay selected members up to $120 to deactivate their accounts beginning at the end of September. "
Finally, a compelling reason to open an account!
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I should open ten accounts.
Confounds (Score:2)
There's a whole bunch of confounding variables in this experiment, I hope they are considering them, otherwise the data will be useless. It seems more like a PR move to me, than an actual experiment.
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Most importantly, how are they "select"ing users to offer this choice to?
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the opposite. If you're pro-Trump, they'll get you off the platform and let them make it an echo chamber of pro-Biden propaganda with nobody left on there to disagree or offer an alternative view.
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If they're really being impartial it should be the people with the most followers.
What do you mean, "it's not Twitter"? How the fuck should I know about either platforms?
What about us? (Score:3)
Lots of us refrained to use it from the get-go.
What do we get?
Re:What about us? (Score:4, Funny)
You get a neverending supply of smug, though you don't get any actual privacy, since Fb is tracking you anyway.
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Breaking! Facebook has NO EFFECT on voting choices (Score:2)
Oh wait, we were supposed to actually do the research BEFORE we posted the conclusion?
My bad. Anyway, that's what the data(*) will turn out to show, so you might as well take it as given.
(*): As properly massaged by our highly salaried data-obscu^H^H^H^H^scientists.
The toxicity of our city... (Score:5, Interesting)
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My thoughts exactly. Also, why not just shut it down completely for a month?
Because they are only paying certain people to be silent.
It wouldn't surprise me if the people they choose happen to be from whichever side of the aisle they'd rather not hear from anyway.
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Now that would be a nice social experiment. See which of your friends can't form an opinion on their own, watch them looking at their phone every five minutes because Pavlov, etc.
WooHoo! I'm a millionaire! (Score:1)
Just let me shut down my thousands of accounts and voila! Better than the lottery!
Selection bias? (Score:2)
So, it seems to me those most unlikely to take FB up on this offer are the ones who are most in need of doing so.
Randomly Disabling Accounts (Score:1)
How much to never sign up? (Score:2)
I'll be rich!
Good thing slashdot isn't trying this (Score:2)
influencing the election (Score:2)
So they are going to pay certain people to log off to see if it affects voting?
And they are admitting to this? Is this going to be targeted at swing states?
Sounds to me like an attempt to manipulate the election poorly disguised
as a "study".
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So they are going to pay certain people to log off to see if it affects voting? And they are admitting to this? Is this going to be targeted at swing states? Sounds to me like an attempt to manipulate the election poorly disguised as a "study".
Do you seriously think that people decide who to vote for because of stupid posts on Facebook?
Re:influencing the election (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you seriously think that people decide who to vote for because of stupid posts on Facebook?
It has already been shown that facebook does affect voter turnout. Either it reminds you to vote when you might have forgotten or there is peer pressure because you see friends posting pictures of themselves voting. Also, if advertising didn't work, why are both sides spending millions of dollars on facebook?
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So they are going to pay certain people to log off to see if it affects voting? And they are admitting to this? Is this going to be targeted at swing states? Sounds to me like an attempt to manipulate the election poorly disguised as a "study".
Do you seriously think that people decide who to vote for because of stupid posts on Facebook?
do you seriously think people only look at the candidates voting history in congress and their platform and nothing else can sway them from well reasoned arguments weight against the likelihood of their getting accomplished based on the difficulty and candidate's temperament?
Because unless you believe that then it makes just as much sense for people to be swayed by facebook as it does the nightly news or the paper or good website design.
Re: influencing the election (Score:1)
Re: So you want to control our thoughts (Score:1)
I am a conservative independent voter and this feels manipulative.
A true conservative would think rather than feel that it was manipulative. However, the good news is that there's already a party out there for you.
;)
Ill conceived (Score:2)
I mean, the first give-away that this is not well thought out is that they use the phrase "selected users"
So in fact, what the likely mean are users that are currently on the system and have usage patterns that indicate that without some external incentive to *not* use facebook, it is very unlikely they would do so.
To that end, I'd be honestly surprised if they end up having to pay out even a dozen people who were active facebook users that actually manage to not use facebook for that period. Especia
If they really wanted to help (Score:3)
They could simply begin with taking responsibility for the garbage posted on its plateform and restricting political content that are obvious lies and misinformation. I'm not sure that sending people to the polls dangerously misinformed is an improvement over just not sending them in the first place.
"Selected" they say (Score:2)
"the company will pay selected members up to $120 to deactivate their accounts beginning at the end of September."
The Selection process, which is the only thing of interest, isn't mentioned.
But if 120$ is an incentive, I guess they don't mean the Elite or the "Influenzas" :-) as they call themselves.
selected members? (Score:2)
> the company will pay selected members up to $120 to deactivate their accounts
Selected members? I'm guessing they'll "select" mostly Republicans.
Scams in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... (Score:3)
Want 120 bucks?
scientifically biased against expats, you mean? (Score:1)
so... I guess we can safely ignore the 9 million or so US expats?
I've been selected to participate (Score:2)
I rarely use facebook anymore (maybe 2-4 times a month, just to read family updates) but last week I went there and immediately got a popup asking if I would be part of the study. Since I rarely use it anyway I figured it wouldn't hurt, so I signed up.
For what it's worth I'm sure facebook can deduce that I'm anti-Trump from my profile. I'm guessing the point of the study is to try to demonstrate the facebook doesn't have a political bias, so they're probably picking an equal number of "reliable voters" from
That's nice (Score:1)