Warning: This article discusses suicide.
Joe Rogan’s podcast has become known for diving into controversial topics, from the supposed number of 'crashed UFOs' to unhinged Tesla reviews and behind-the-scenes truths about the tech world.
Despite being dethroned as the top podcast on Spotify, the Joe Rogan Experience continues to hold the crown for mind-blowing discussions and hosting deep topics with celebrities and politicians you wouldn't otherwise see.
Rebecca Lemov, a historian of science and expert on mind control at Harvard University, was recently a guest on the podcast and what she revealed about Facebook's social experiment left Rogan stunned.
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Back in 2012, the social media giant quietly altered the news feeds of nearly 700,000 users.
Unbeknownst to the user, these secret changes to the algorithm changed the emotional tone of their news feeds, either making them more positive or more negative. In other words, the Mark Zuckerberg-owned platform wanted to find out if they could alter people's emotions and online behaviours by curating what they scroll through.
While Facebook claimed it was done to make content more 'relevant and engaging,' the experiment went public and was slammed as brainwashing.
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Lemov compared the tactic to how cults work, not by convincing people with logic, but by emotionally shifting how they feel, potentially causing mental harm.
"It's not that it changed my thoughts, it's that it changed my feelings about my thoughts," the expert explained. Lemov added that at least one person later claimed that the negativity in their altered feed may have pushed them to a suicide attempt.
The Meta platform never told the 689,003 people involved. However, according to Lemov, users have already granted permission by agreeing to the platform’s terms of service.
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"Whenever you go on the platform, you agree to be tested or A-B testing," said Lemov. "This is why there was an ethical debate when the experiment was published in 2014."
Researchers from Cornell University and the University of California-San Francisco investigated the controversial study which found a correlation between positive content and positive user updates, and vice versa.
However, Lemov said one person posted on the research group's Facebook page in 2014 that they were in a hospital emergency room, threatening to commit suicide at the time of the experiment. Others also came forward with similar experiences.
"Of course, they could never know, and it can't be traced backwards," Lemov revealed, adding that users have no way of knowing if Facebook manipulated them.
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"Whenever people have power, unchecked power, and insane influence, particularly influence to manipulate people and influence over people's minds... You could get away with so much," Rogan warned. "No matter who you are, you're vulnerable, whether it's through society, whether it's through peer groups, whether it's through community, we're vulnerable. Everyone's vulnerable."
Although the public response to the study triggered an investigation by US government officials, no direct legal action was taken because Facebook’s user agreement covered data use for research purposes.