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Dating service OkCupid has cheerfully admitted to manipulating what it shows users, a month after Facebook faced a storm of protest when it revealed that it had conducted psychological experiments.

Karen is a life coach and she's happy to help you work through a few things in your life. You interact with Karen through an app. When you begin, she asks you some questions about your outlook on the world to get an understanding of you. In fact, her questions are drawn from psychological profiling questionnaires. She - and the software - are profiling you and she gives you advice based on your answers.

"Leaked documents said to describe how the social network shares psychological insights on young people with advertisers"

Someone who knows things about us has some measure of control over us, and someone who knows everything about us has a lot of control over us. Surveillance facilitates control.

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 blueprint or something. Most ideas are bad. Even good ideas could be better.

"Facebook's News Feed-the main list of status updates, messages, and photos you see when you open Facebook on your computer or phone-is not a perfect mirror of the world. But few users expect that Facebook would change their News Feed in order to manipulate their emotional state."