Facebook Knows If You're Gay, Use Drugs, Or Are a Republican

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Not that there's anything wrong with that — as the Guardian reports that Facebook users are unwittingly revealing their sexual orientation, drug use and political beliefs– using only public 'like' updates. A study of 58,000 Facebook users in the US found that sensitive personal characteristics about people can be accurately inferred from information in the public domain. Researchers were able to accurately infer a Facebook user's race, IQ, sexuality, substance use, personality or political views (PDF) using only a record of the subjects and items they had 'liked' on Facebook – even if users had chosen not to reveal that information. 'It is good that people's behavior is predictable because it means Facebook can suggest very good stories on your news feed,' says Michal Kosinski, 'But what is shocking is that you can use the same data to predict your political views or your sexual orientation. This is something most people don't realize you can do.' For example, researchers were able to predict whether men were homosexual with 88% accuracy by their likes of Facebook pages such as 'Human Rights Campaign' and 'Wicked the Musical' – even if those users had not explicitly shared their sexuality on the site. According to the study other personality traits linked to predictive likes include for High IQ — 'The Godfather,' 'Lord of the Rings,' 'The Daily Show'; for Low IQ — 'Harley Davidson,' 'I Love Being A Mom,' 'Tyler Perry'; and for male heterosexuality — 'Wu Tang Clan,' 'Shaq,' and 'Being Confused after Waking Up from Naps.' Facebook's default privacy settings mean that your 'likes' are public to anyone and Facebook's own algorithms already use these likes to dictate what stories end up in users' news feeds, while advertisers can access them to determine which are the most effective ads to show you as you browse."

Comments

Re:But

[rsborg]

Wouldn't the "highest intelligence indicator" be applied to those who don't "do" facebook, twitter, etc?

Or did I just miss something flying over my head?

You aren't missing it, but aren't seeing the totality of Facebook's insidious nature. Now not having a Facebook account is treated by HR departments as suspicious behavior. Also, Facebook made it easy for people to "tag" you - if you don't have an account, you can't repudiate it (or prevent tagging by default). You are literally forced to play their game unless you want your good name being abused. So best move is to have one that's effectively empty, and turn all privacy settings down to the most private.

Of course this defeats the purpose of having a Facebook account - but that's the purpose, right?

Re:Turns out

[246o1]

I'd like to see a page about me that says, "Here's the information you've provided, and here's the information we're inferring from what we know about you." I suppose they'd never do that because it might very well creep people out too much, but then, it might get people whose inferences are wrong to directly supply the information to them.

BlueKai does something similar (except it's for a wide range of display advertising, not just facebook) - they infer things about you based on your browsing history and use that to target ads at you. They are all over the web, so they have a good amount of information, but the surprising thing to me is that they let you look at your profile on their website - http://www.bluekai.com/registry/ is the place to find it.

I don't work for BlueKai, or even for a company that uses them.

Just The Tip

[Bob9113]

found that sensitive personal characteristics about people can be accurately inferred from information in the public domain.

I've done this stuff, for both ad targeting and music targeting, and I understand the math. Knowing whether you are gay is just the tip of the iceberg.

From the data it can be inferred whether you believe Bradley Manning was justified, whether you think it is treason for a politician to support warrantless surveillance, and whether you believe the "four boxes" epigram is relevant in the current context.

It can be inferred how you react to various turns of phrase, which ways of presenting an idea will ring with you, and therefore how to present a story to you, such that you will be likely to repeat the sound bites on one side of the issue or the other.

They can do this, with an automated system, for hundreds of millions of people -- as can anyone who pays them enough for the data or analysis. It is not a difference in type from what has gone by the name of PR, spin, or handling; but rather a difference of speed, pervasiveness, precision targeting, and potency. It puts more power to distort human perception of reality in the hands of fewer people than ever before -- by orders of magnitude.

The data, once gathered, will remain, and will be packaged and sold, and cracked and siezed, until long after you are dead -- barring some very serious and extremely disruptive counteractivity. It is getting worse every day, and the cost of correcting it is growing exponentially.

Most people don't know it is happening, and most of those who do don't seem to grasp the consequences.