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Digital Planet: Facebook Emotion Manipulation

Factual: Science & Nature

Facebook patron looking at her page at an internet shop

01/07/2014

Facebook Emotion Manipulation

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, Facebook Emotion Manipulation

A report on the outrage over Facebook research into mood manipulation

Facebook Emotion Manipulation; Amnesty’s Panic Button; Im-Able; Rebooting Explorer 3

Does the news feed that you receive affect your mood? The answer is "yes" according to researchers who looked at several hundred thousand accounts on Facebook. The idea of possible steering your mood negatively or positively on a social networking site has prompted outrage.  Click talks to the tech specialist, Mary Hamilton and looks at the science of emotional manipulation.

Amnesty's Panic Button
You are a human rights activist, and you find yourself working alone in a dangerous environment when suddenly it looks like you are under threat.  What will you do? Press the panic button, suggests Amnesty International. The panic button is a new app aimed at alerting people of your danger and providing help. Amnesty's Tanya O'Carroll joins Click to explain how it works.

Im-Able 
Fifteen million people a year suffer from stroke worldwide and of these, five million are left permanently disabled. A New Zealand company has developed a video gaming system that helps rehabilitate victims of stroke. It is using traditional gaming technology to restore movement in stroke victims. The ableX system is presently under trial in Australia at The Royal Melbourne Hospital. Simon Morton reports on one family's embrace of the new scheme.

Rebooting Explorer 3
A sleepy spacecraft more or less forgotten by NASA has prompted a group of volunteers to try to awaken it – with NASA's permission. Click hears from Dennis Wingo, one of the team of space cowboys aiming to reboot the explorer, ISEE–3.

(Photo: A Facebook patron looking at her page at an internet shop. Credit: Getty Images)

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