Facebook has surprised Some People with a very interesting proposal, as some people in the United States are receiving an invitation to participate in a study where Mark Zuckerberg’s company offers money in exchange for users to deactivate their accounts. This means that they will have to log out and stop using them for a defined time, they do not have to delete it, but they do have to completely stop using it for as long as they are paid.
The Facebook study intends to find out what is the role of social networks in democracy in the United States , since next November there will be presidential elections in the United States. The evidence of this Facebook campaign was first published by reporter Elizabeth Dwoskin from the Washington Post, where we can see that in her case she is offered money for deactivating her Instagram account, although as we mentioned at the beginning, this also applies to accounts From Facebook.
Does Facebook have significant power in elections?
As The Verge mentions , this week the company announced a partnership with 17 external and independent researchers to study the impact of Facebook and Instagram on key political attitudes and behaviors during the 2020 U.S. elections . This means that said researchers will not be paid by Facebook and will not respond to the company, even the results of the research will be published in academic journals in open access format.
The company expects between 200,000 and 400,000 users to participate in the project, although it is not revealed exactly how users who receive an invitation to participate in the project are being selected, and data on how many people they expect to deactivate has not been provided. their Facebook account and how many of Instagram, or if a participant can apply to suspend their accounts of both services if they have them.
What Facebook does clarify is that this research will be conducted only with adults in the United States, and that the study samples will be designed to ensure that participants reflect the diversity of the American adult population.
How much money is Facebook paying to participate?
According to the screenshot offered by the Washington Post, in the invitation, users can select one of the 3 economic rewards that are $ 10.15 or $ 20 approximately. However, each user must decide how much money they are determined to receive, and once this option is chosen, Facebook will tell them how long they will have to stop using their account, so they will have to log out and not use the service for the indicated time. which can range from one week to 6 weeks.
That is, if you choose to receive $ 20 per week and Facebook tells you that you will have to deactivate your account for 6 weeks, then in the end you will receive $ 120.
The results of the study will not be published until the middle of next year, but Facebook promises that they will be an important advance in the impact of social networks in the elections, in fact, the same company mentioned the following:
“The 2016 US elections exposed the risk of abusing social media to interfere with elections, and disinformation and political polarization are also clearly reproduced on social media platforms.”