Slashdot Mirror
Judging You By the Online Company You Keep
theodp writes "Network analysis uses data about your social network interactions to make assumptions and predictions about your behavior. The Economist notes the upside for companies looking to sell products. But don't forget about the downside, warns Adrian Chen, of living in a world where network analysis is used by financial firms to determine risky borrowers by looking at social ties, or by Internet businesses to determine which customers are more equal than others (nice to see Microsoft's back on the forefront of some tech!). So, did Mom envision Social Network Analytics when she gave you that you-are-the-company-you-keep lecture?"
There are a lot of people that will let anyone be their online friend. After all you don't have to be around them physically, and as long as you're reasonably careful with details like your real address there tend to be few consequence for letting someone unsavoury onto a list of friends. What's more you can usually remove them again any time you like. Yes you can end up doing illegal things with company you meet online but in most cases you'd need to actively pursue it. That's nothing like the real world. In the real world you can get beaten up, robbed or killed just by socialising with the wrong people. You can be forced to commit crimes through threats and blackmail.
If the morons in a HR or marketing department don't understand that they need to have their pay reduced by a factor of 10. This stupidity has to stop somewhere. Social networking analysis may yield some useful data in terms of tracking people with common interests, but beyond that it's just a silly game of 6 degrees of separation minus Kevin Bacon.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
of all of these whistleblower articles on slashdot these days. Is there nothing else by the constant formula of "Beneficial technology X. But X might and will be used for bad things!" It's always in the same tone. I mean, I've been on this site for about two years now and I'm just starting to get tired of the same old agenda.
Starbucks in on the Boycott Israel list AND THEY MAKE CRAP COFFEE.