Is Facebook conducting a survey on the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections 2014? I have been hearing about this for the last couple of days but before yesterday, I didn't get any notice from Facebook neither did I see any 'promoted' survey ad from any contesting political parties being 'pushed' to my news feed. I thought it was a hoax like many other social media hoax that we're accustomed to seeing in recent times. Guess what, I was wrong!
Last night when I logged into my Facebook account I saw in my 'FB notifications list' this message - 'Facebook has invited you to take this survey'. I clicked. Why? As because, in the past I have participated in social media surveys conducted by Facebook and Twitter, both with the intention and promise of "improving my overall experience with those sites". But again I was wrong this time.
As soon as I clicked I landed up in my own FB news feed and on top of the feed, there was a big horizontal 'Call to Action' tab with the message - "Please take this survey and help Facebook customize your experience" I clicked on it and it opened a survey form. To my astonishment, it was a personal survey on Lok Sabha Election 2014. See below -
Why would Facebook ask me about my political preference? And why should I be encouraged to disclose my political likes/dislikes publicly? What interest does Facebook has in extracting political insights of its users? Is there a BIG money game being played to mine valuable data from Facebook user base? The moment I saw it, it knew what to do. I checked all the boxes in "0" column and clicked 'continue'. But, I was in for another surprise! see below -
So, I have to rate the parties in spite of the fact I'm NOT interested in any of them or their activities whatsoever! Any ways, for the sake of finding out the next set of questions I rated a few between 10 and 20 and clicked 'continue'. To my dismay, the next survey question was even more 'intrusive' on my privacy!
Why on earth should I be instigated by Facebook to disclose my association with any political party when I personally chose not to disclose any of such associations in my Facebook profile? I chose to select 'not/registered' and clicked 'continue' The result was even more surprising!
Enough is enough! I closed the window and cancelled my participation midway.
My questions are - Why would Facebook run such a survey in the first place? Are they getting paid by Political parties in India, those mentioned in the 'survey form' to find out the actual number of supporters they have, who are registered with Facebook? Is this a BIG data extraction technique employed by data firms who sell stats/ analysis to corporates in conjunction with Facebook? Isn't this a breach of 'privacy' from Facebook to force a user to disclose his/her private like/dislike toward a political party? Especially when Facebook is conducting a massive 'Privacy Awareness Week' campaign educating everyone on how to guard their privacy in Facebook, this is the least expected from them.
Did you face any similar situation? What's your take on this issue? Would you agree with Facebook or should you support my action? I look forward to your comments.
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