Facebook has an internal simulation of the site populated entirely by bots that they're using to test the effects of possible changes
8
votes
Facebook et al. must be excited right now with this jackpot of acute behavioral data they're acquiring, in the context of a global catastrophe. I wonder if anyone has any insight here into what kind of research they are doing? I know it's all usually a tight secret.
One idea that came to mind is that this would be excellent data to weaponize. Now we (as in social media corps.) can generate a pretty good model of what a global conflict looks like on the level of individual behavior and how that can be used for an advantage. The other edge of the sword would be this will help future public health initiatives but somehow I don't see this info being made publically available...