[<a href="//storify.com/cbccommunity/okcupid" target="_blank">View the story "OkCupid defends fake matches in the name of science" on Storify</a>]<h1>OkCupid defends fake matches in the name of science</h1><h2></h2><p>Storified by <a href="https://storify.com/cbccommunity">CBC News Community</a>· Tue, Jul 29 2014 17:20:14
</p><div>Digboston</div><div>Facebook is not the only company freely experimenting on its users.<br><br>"If you use the internet, you're the subjects of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That's how websites work," <a href="http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/we-experiment-on-human-beings/" class="">wrote OkCupid</a>, announcing in its first blog post in three years that it has run many experiments on its clientele.<br></div><div>The OkCupid blog is back! New post up now: WE EXPERIMENT ON HUMAN BEINGS http://t.co/E6KfYxhnbaOkCupid</div><div>We Experiment On Human Beings!I'm the first to admit it: we might be popular, we might create a lot of great relationships, we might blah blah blah. But OkCupid doesn't really know what it's doing. Neither does any other website. It's not like people have been building these things for very long, or you can go look up a [...]</div><div>OkCupid is a free online dating service, which prides itself on using a math-based couples matching system that is "extremely accurate," according to its website.<br></div><div>Match Percentages | OkCupidWhat exactly those numbers mean. This is a brief, but technical, explanation of how your match percentages are calculated. It's a little complicated, but our method is quite interesting-even unique. Also, there's a patent pending, so no funny business. Lets get started We start wanting to calculate a match percentage for you and someone else.</div><div>The blog outlined three "more interesting experiments" OkCupid has conducted, according to company co-founder Christian Rudder. These include:<br><br>1. Removing photos from profiles for seven hours.<br>2. Only showing a user's profile picture 50 per cent of the time others view their profile to see how it impacts their looks and personality rankings.<br>3. Telling two poorly matched users, with a 30 per cent compatibility rate, that they were either a 30, 60 or 90 per cent match to test whether the myth of compatibility works.<br></div><div>OkCupid's user experimentsDating site admits it regularly manipulates members' profiles for marketing purposes</div><div>Presscdn</div><div>OkCupid also came out in support of <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/06/facebooks-emotion-experiment-angers-users-kept-in-the-dark.html" class="">Facebook's controversial emotion experiment</a>, which knowingly attempted to alter the emotional states of nearly 700,000 users.</div><div>Facebook experiments with usersTechnology expert Graham Williams talks about problems with Facebook changing its users news feed</div><div>The company came under fire for the experiment with people accusing it of violating ethics and not having informed consent from users.<br></div><div>Facebook's emotion experiment angers users kept in the darkView the story "Facebook's emotion experiment angers users kept in the dark" on Storify ] Facebook's emotion experiment angers users kept in the dark Storified by CBC News Community · Mon, Jun 30 2014 21:28:22 Zdnet Some people are angry with Facebook's apparent lack of ethics after the social network teamed up with scientists and knowingly attempted to alter the emotional states of nearly 700,000 users.</div><div>Many of the site's users hoping to meet their perfect match online were dismayed to learn about the company possibly presenting them with inaccurate match percentages.<br></div><div>OKCupid. We've been apathetic about Match Making since 2009! #realslogans #okcupidRachel LaForce</div><div>So much for OKCupid, your % match is meaningless. Total waste of time.LittleMissFireball</div><div>Tumblr</div><div>#okcupid lies to couples about compatibility #match. #DumbandDumber #boycott #okcupidBonfireLana</div><div>OKCupid treats your love life like a lab rat http://t.co/hqMqF1H7jxeltonbowie</div><div>Some took solace in the blog post explaining why some of their OkCupid matches may not have worked out.<br><br>"So that explains why many times I have had a high match percentage, but after reading their profile and match questions, I've thought, 'What the hell is [OkCupid] thinking?! We don't match at all,'" wrote Jazz.<br></div><div>That explains the bad matches! BBC News - OKCupid experiments with 'bad' dating matches http://t.co/mlWvlD9U0tJonathan Sowler</div><div>"Makes me wonder about my 96 per cent match that had four pages of unacceptable answers..." wrote Chelsea under OkCupid's post.<br></div><div>Wordpress</div><div>Many took issue with Rudder's tone, which they said was condescending.<br><br>"Wow. Did you actually try to word this in the most offensive, off-putting manner, or does that quality come naturally to you?" asked Durdan. "Your presentation here reeks of arrogance. The condescending tone, the flippant attitude towards users' (arguably valid) concerns about the extent to which web-driven businesses manipulate them makes me sick to my stomach... You live in an insular world in which your users' wishes, concerns and emotions are secondary (at best) to your profit. Nothing pierces that wall of arrogance. You haven't presented a shaded, nuanced argument here parsing the need for business development with ethical concerns. You simply claim the ground that a web business can do what it likes at any time. After all that's the way the internet works. No ethics required."<br><br>Durdan, like multiple others, said he would no longer be using the company's services.<br></div><div>www.thelavinagency.com</div><div>"The casualness of this blog post strongly suggests to me that its author, and perhaps OkCupid's staff altogether, isn't nearly mature enough to understand the ethical issues of the experiments the company is conducting," wrote Matt. "I think it can't be emphasized enough that it's clear that OkCupid is playing with people's personal lives without any evidence of careful thinking about the results - or without careful thinking about these people as people. I see no controversy: it's the wrong way to treat others. Frankly, it's tinged with sociopathy, and the way it's touted here rings with narcissism."<br><br>Many said what Rudder and his company did was much worse than Facebook's experiment.<br></div><div>This #datascience experiment by OkCupid seems much more intrusive than Facebook's. See Experiment 3. http://t.co/CJACiVAvPlZev Ross</div><div>Unlike Facebook, OkCupid shamelessly experiments on us http://t.co/PY1BpZ0F8LRichard Hay</div><div>But not everyone seemed convinced that OkCupid had stepped over any major ethical lines, especially not when comparing their work to Facebook's emotional experiment.<br></div><div>It appears to me that @okcupid's Petri dish is being used used a bit more responsibly than @facebook's.Ryan Burg</div><div>At least, they are honest - OkCupid admits that it experiments on users, just like Facebook http://t.co/sg84XsvheA via @vergeMathieu Lacaze</div><div>"I don't think that your experiments could be compared to Facebook's," wrote LadyLuna. "Their experiments induced people to feel in a specific way by modifying the type of news they were shown; whereas yours did not affects the user's feelings in bad ways."<br></div><div>Why Facebook's human experiments are far worse than OkCupid's (me @PandoDaily) http://t.co/kgGKwsr6ppDavid Holmes</div><div>Others said those who were annoyed with OkCupid - or Facebook - for conducting experiments on its users, simply did not understand how the internet operates.</div><div>Anyone outraged about @okcupid 's experiments has literally no idea how the internet actually works. And I mean that VERY literally.Bert</div><div>Rewards4mom</div><div>soooo apparently ppl haven't heard yet that IF YOU'RE NOT PAYING FOR IT, YOU'RE THE PRODUCT #facebook #okcupid @TheMarySue #duh #90swisdomB-[</div><div>This echoed OkCupid's sentiment, as Rudder wrote in the post: "But guess what, everybody: if you use the internet, you're the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That's how websites work."<br><br>Some users were thankful for Rudder's analysis and even applauded OkCupid for amassing widespread publicity for its site thanks to the experiments.<br></div><div>We Experiment On Human Beings! Love the way #OkCupid owned their #analytics and even scored #publicity. http://t.co/CT5RZgbX86 #oktrendsVictoria Kamerzell</div><div>"Love the blog post and please keep doing experiments! I started using OkCupid because of your old blog and am very happy to see a new blog post!" wrote Jonathan.<br></div><div>Got to admire how @okcupid has ridden the wave of the FB controversy to generate unparalleled publicity thoughVarsha Joshi</div><div>All this publicity may be part of Rudder's campaign to promote his new book, <i>Dataclysm: Who we are (when we think no one's looking)</i>.<br></div><div>Images-amazon</div><div>For fans of his experiment, that doesn't seem to be a bad thing.<br><br>"I am really looking forward to the book," wrote Rebecca, who says she's been using the site since she was 18. "I love how much you've done with the data you pull from us (because I know people are most honest when they're anonymous)... I'll be picking [the book] up at my bookstore in September. Thank you for working so hard on the site still. It is deeply appreciated."<br></div><div>Glad to see @okcupid blog back, because @christianrudder's book DATACLYSM is fascinating. Can't stop talking about it http://t.co/oT2UGT1Z6SMonique M</div><div><b>What do you think of OkCupid's experiments? Do you think it's fair science or a publicity stunt?</b><br></div>
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