--- title: OKCupid Says Every Website Experiments on Humans, Not Just Facebook description: OKCupids relaunched the blog OKTrends to reveal Facebook isn't the only site experimenting on human beings canonical: https://time.com/3047603/okcupid-oktrends-experiments/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-28T19:05:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:48:32.057Z og:title: Facebook Isn't the Only Website Running Experiments on Human Beings og:description: OKCupid cops to the trend og:url: https://time.com/3047603/okcupid-oktrends-experiments/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d5f0d65bcdbab2b/6986827a1eebf71f9336f801/bc9209-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4555 og:image:height: 2562 og:image:alt: Online Dating og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Facebook Isn't the Only Website Running Experiments on Human Beings twitter:description: OKCupid cops to the trend twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d5f0d65bcdbab2b/6986827a1eebf71f9336f801/bc9209-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Facebook Isn't the Only Website Running Experiments on Human Beings > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Jul 28, 2014 7:05 PM UTC  Male, female and love-heart symbols on computer keys (Composite) Male, female and love-heart symbols on computer keys (Composite) Getty Images by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Jul 28, 2014 7:05 PM UTC It was the Facebook study heard ’round the world. In June, [the social network revealed that it had briefly tweaked its algorithm](http://time.com/2936729/facebook-emotions-study/) for a lucky (or unlucky) 698,003 users to make them feel happier (or sadder) based on what they see on their Newsfeed. The reaction to human experimentation—creepy emotional manipulation! mind control!—came out so strong, that Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) [asked the FTC to investigate.](http://mashable.com/2014/07/09/mark-warner-facebook/) Christian Rudder, the co-founder of dating site OKCupid, was shocked by the internet’s shock. “It’s just a fact of life online,” he says. “There’s no website that doesn’t run experiments online.” And so, Rudder posted OKTrends’ first blog post in three years Monday to announce to the world, [“We experiment on human beings!”](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/we-experiment-on-human-beings/) Rudder relaunched the site with the revelation that “OkCupid doesn’t really know what it’s doing,” which is why it uses human guinea pigs. And to be honest, “If you use the Internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site.” For example, OkCupid decided to run an experiment in which it told people who were bad matches (30%) that they actually had a compatibility score of 90%. And the result was that they were far more likely to exchange four messages — aka an actual “conversation” — with a bad match they thought was good than with a bad match they knew was subpar.  OkTrends Luckily, OKC investigated further and found that all online daters aren’t just sheep. Matches were far more likely to have conversations with people they were actually matches with as opposed to people they were _told_ they were good matches with.  OkTrends Other experiments [can be found in the OkTrends blog post.](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/we-experiment-on-human-beings/) Rudder argues that some online experiments can lead to offline life changes, like when Facebook tests out a new layout on a small percent of users to see if it’s more effective. “My wife’s Facebook was ordered differently than mine,” he says. “You know, I’m not saying that we are now totally different people, but she saw some news that I didn’t see and she reacted to it and whatever.” Or the changes can be bigger, Rudder says. “On OkCupid, when we make a change, even a mundane one, that changes who people talk to, who they flirt with, who they go on dates with, and I’m sure in some cases who they get married to.” At the end of the day, Rudder thinks, “If you like Facebook or think that Reddit is a good thing or OKCupid is a good thing, then almost by definition experiments can be good. That’s the only way you get from Facemash, which Mark Zuckerberg made in his dorm room, to Facebook.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3047603/okcupid-oktrends-experiments/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3047603/okcupid-oktrends-experiments/"},"headline":"Facebook Isn't the Only Website Running Experiments on Human Beings","datePublished":"2014-07-28T19:05:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:48:32.057Z","description":"OKCupid proudly cops to the trend","url":"https://time.com/3047603/okcupid-oktrends-experiments/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Tech","Living","Internet","Technology","okcupid","facebook","relationships","privacy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d5f0d65bcdbab2b/6986827a1eebf71f9336f801/bc9209-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d5f0d65bcdbab2b/6986827a1eebf71f9336f801/bc9209-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Online Dating","caption":"Online Dating","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3047603/okcupid-oktrends-experiments/","name":"Facebook Isn't the Only Website Running Experiments on Human Beings"}}]}] ```