Today, temporarily, some users with access to Facebook's Power Editor tool got a glimpse of a new targeted ad system the social network is prepping to roll out next week.

Unfortunately, the terms under which FB claims to have done this set a terrible precedent for our future - for our control over the software we use to interact with each other, for control over our data and for our privacy.

Facebook had subjected nearly 700,000 users in an experiment without their knowledge, manipulating these individuals' news feeds, reducing positive or negative content, and examining the emotions of these individuals' subsequent posts.