Facebook prematurely sends out satisfaction survey to some users
Facebook sent out a rather strange survey to some of its nearly 1 billion users.
The social network advertised a multiple-page survey at the top of select users’ News Feeds. But when some people clicked on it, the survey stopped short and was incomplete.
“For a brief period of time, an incomplete test survey was visible to a small percentage of users,” a Facebook spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times. “This survey has been removed.”
There were several pages of questions related to satisfaction regarding users’ overall Facebook experience and about some specific features, such as the News Feed.
That was followed by questions related to how users get their news, with Facebook mentioning Twitter, CNN and other outlets and mediums. The company then began asking users more personal questions, including when they were born, how much money they make and what race they identify with.
That’s as far as I got with the survey before the pages no longer functioned, but then things really got strange.
According to MarketingLand.com, the Facebook survey then began asking users about their political leanings, including how they describe their political ideology.
The Facebook survey then literally started a news quiz on modern politics. Among the questions asked were who the vice president is, which presidential candidate supports allowing some illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S., and which company Mitt Romney used to run.
And the news quiz continued for five pages.
Afterward, the survey showed you the correct answers to all the questions it asked. It let you give feedback on how you felt about the survey (was it too long or too short) and it also gave you a text box where you could share any comments.
It’s unclear what exactly this survey was for, but it could be that Facebook was trying to get data from users to improve its service. On the other hand, MarketingLand speculates Facebook could be readying surveys as another service clients can purchases in addition to the ads the social network sells.
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