Slashdot Mirror
When Writing, How Anonymous Can You Be, Really?
An anonymous reader writes "Do you still think your online writing is, basically, anonymous? Think again! Research has it people put much of their personal traits into their writing, and computers may just be able to pick them up. That's at least what a recently announced competition on author identification (Given a document, who wrote it?) and author profiling (Given a document, what are its author's age and gender?) wants to find out. Alas, re-using other people's writing is no solution either; there's also a competition on plagiarism detection (Given a document, is it an original?). Wanna revisit your recent rants?"
Google thinks I'm a 20 year old male. I'm in my early thirties and a gal. I think visiting Slashdot so much throws off its algorithm, as does all the video game sites I hang out at.
I think you misunderstand the purpose of the algorithm. A writing sample is, of course, insufficient to detect your age and gender precisely.
There is a good chance that your writing style matches that expected of a male in their twenties, in which case the algorithm had done well. You may be a gal, but your interests and behavior is perhaps more similar to that of a male in their twenties, and for the purposes of predicting what to sell you or what to expect from you, that's actually more accurate than your actual stats.