Could ‘Like’ing’ Facebook content damage your health?

Posted on: 9:11am, 2010 July (Tuesday 6th) By: Tim Waddington

Last week, Netvibes blogged about the integration of a Facebook ‘Like’ button on all of their articles http://blog.netvibes.com/facebook-like-button-now-available-on-netvibes/.  I was fairly ambivalent about this story until I started noticing ‘bad’ news appearing with a ‘like’ option next to it, thus:

This got me thinking.

There is already an ‘anti-social’ school of thought which suggests that constantly sharing every minute detail of your life is a) tedious but also b) potentially dangerous.

The more people know about who your siblings or friends are (Facebook), where you work (Linkedin),  where you are (Foursquare), what you’re thinking (Twitter), what you’re buying (Blippy), the easier it potentially is for someone to piece together enough information for nefarious activities such as identity theft.  I’m playing devils’ advocate, but in reality I think the numerous security checks in place and the many benefits of social interaction and engagement through media outweighs the potential risks, however the potential to ‘like’ things which could upset or anger your friends and peers worried me.

A simple slip of the mouse could see you championing the cause of a mass murderer, or showing your pleasure at the plight of people blighted by an earthquake.

Could there not be a way for Facebook/Netvibes to run some sort of contextual screening in order to filter the news into ‘likeable’ and ‘unlikeable’?  Can they make a judgement call on the things which we should like or not?  If so, is the logical progression that they could start serving content based on qualitative information based specifically on your user profile, rather than just the demographic group you fit into?

Facebook already serves advertising specifically targeted to you based on your job network, or  your age, marital status, sex etc, and even more contextually to your books, musical taste, film choices etc.  Their argument is that you are more likely to have your user experienced enhanced by ads promoting products and services relevant to your tastes.

I think this makes sense for all concerned, but where does it stop?  Facebook have always said that they’re a technology company, and do not create content, however, having recently overtaken Google in the US as the most visited website, it’s in Facebook’s interest to host content which engages its audience and keeps them on site for longer.  If they can do this by pulling in external news and articles and broadcasting them to users’ friends, then it’s in their interest to start refining that content and only providing content which it knows that a users’ friend network will like as well.

The more ‘likes’ – the more engagement, the greater reach, the more page impressions and in turn, the more ad revenue.  Could we be embarking on the dawn of an era where Facebook can help manipulate and control the news and information we consume, leading to a homogenised, sterile social bubble where nothing bad ever happens and bad news is on a need-to-know basis?  The potential ramifications of a sanitised information space are huge.  We’d be like turkeys looking forward to Christmas.  I wonder if that’s what they’re planning?

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