> Mason, some humans are more vulnerable to these malicious features
My fear is that, even if there currently still exist people who are not susceptible to Facebook's manipulation, one day soon Facebook will acheive such efficiency that this is no lnger the case. Facebook isn't a naturally occuring substance like alcohol that happens to have some addictive properties that affect some humans. It is specifically designed to exploit vulnerabilies in the human brain. Its manipulations are like those of a cult or the abuser in an unhealthy relationship, but with more potential. Cults are only able to mentally a significant number of people by limiting themselves to those with severe and obvious vulnerabilities. Emotional abusers are able to acheive control over otherwise healthy people, but they rely on intimate knowledge of their victim to do so, limiting the number of people they can exploit. Mind control has always existed, just not efficiently enough to instantly work on an arbitrary individual. No longer. Only two things are required to have a mechanism for perfect mind control: (1) automatic detection of an individual's vulnerabilities and (2) automated exploitation of these vulnerabilities. Facebook has almost perfected (1). While (2) is sure to advance much further, it has already come far enough to be very dangerous. I can't stress enough that Facebook already has the power to decide the outcome of a close election: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/can-voting-facebook-button-improve-voter-turnout/
