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Facebook Secretly Tested Users' Apps Addiction: New Report

This article is more than 8 years old.

Facebook  conducted secret tests to determine the magnitude of its Android users’ Facebook addiction, according to a new report published yesterday. Like a bunch of crash test dummies, users of the Facebook app for Android were (several years ago) subject to intentional Facebook for Android app crashes without being informed of the tests.

These tests were reportedly conducted so Facebook could determine user resilience to app deprivation--that is, whether users would find ways to use Facebook on their Android devices without the Google Play store app, such as finding the app elsewhere or simply accessing Facebook via their browsers.

Given that Facebook reportedly has a billion users on Android, there is substantial motivation for Facebook to tests its app independence from Google. Facebook is apparently also testing the waters for its own app store.

Secretly testing user behavior

In the article “Facebook’s Android Contingency Planning,” published yesterday in The Information, Facebook has been “testing how addicted Android phone users are to Facebook apps and making sure they can quickly download them directly from Facebook rather than through Google Play.” The Information reports based on information from one person familiar with the experiment that “Facebook secretly introduc[ed] artificial errors that would automatically crash the app for hours at a time.” The reported purpose of this and related tests was to “prepar[e] for the eventuality that it leaves the Google Play app store.”

Déjà vu

As most readers will recall as it was heavily reported, in June 2014 Facebook was secretly testing user emotional responses to Facebook content by manipulating user newsfeeds. Fallout from this testing was swift and widespread, with Facebook issuing a sort of mea culpa, one of the test’s designers issuing an apology to users affected by the tests, and Cornell University, partner in the test, releasing a statement regarding its involvement in the test (and how and why it did not obtain ethics review board/approval for the tests).

As of July 2014, there were at least ten reported Facebook experiments on users conducted without user knowledge.

Facebook previously threatened to be dropped by Google

There are no reports of anything imminent to indicate that Facebook and Google will part ways; however, “tensions between the companies have simmered for years,” the article asserts. It states based reports of “people who’ve been involved or briefed about such instances,” that Facebook has been threated by Google to be dropped from “the app store in the past, due to Facebook’s violations of app store rules.”

Apparently “Facebook has run all manner of tests to make sure it—and its users—can handle a future in which Facebook isn’t distributed or updated through Google Play,” journalist Amir Efrati writes, including as mentioned, intentionally crashing the Facebook app to force users to devise a Google–independent workaround.

The one-time experiment, that occurred "several years ago," apparently worked. So strong was user addiction to Facebook that if deprived of the native app, users would simply open Facebook in their browsers or obtain the app outside of Google Play. The Information quotes sources as saying, “People never stopped coming back. . .[e]ven if the native app continued to not work, the users would open Facebook on their phone’s mobile browser.

Facebook reportedly declined earlier requests for comment on The Information report; a Facebook spokesperson also declined my request for comment.

My request to Mr. Efrati for additional details on his report is outstanding.

 

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