Turns out, Facebook has been crashing its app on purpose, just to test you

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that Facebook plays games with its users other than Bejeweled Blitz. After all, Facebook fell into some hot water for messing with our minds a while back. But according to our friends over at The Information, the backlash from the psychology tests didn’t deter Facebook from conducting more experiments on their users. In order to test how much users would put up with constant app crashes, the company intentionally crashed the app multiple times on Androids. So no, it wasn’t crashing because of your low storage availability.

Apparently these latest experiments are due to the fraught relationship between Facebook and Google. The tests are apparently part of Facebook’s effort to prepare for a future fight with Google that could force its apps out of the Play Store. Although Facebook depends on Google for distribution, its users could one day potentially bypass Google altogether, downloading Facebook apps and services via an app store that competes directly with Google’s. While no one is planning to drop Facebook from the Play Store anytime soon, the tests seem to indicate that Facebook is looking to leave the Play Store at some point in the foreseeable future. Also, it’s a really good way to test user loyalty.

Amir Efrati at The Information writes:

And I’ll admit it: my Facebook app has crashed in the past. (Granted, I use an iPhone so I wasn’t part of these tests . . . that I know of.) But when the app crashes, I just restart the app and try again. How’s that for loyalty Facebook? Now pretty please, stop with the mind games.

(Image via Shutterstock)