Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Release Profile Data on 70,000 OkCupid Users Without Permission (vox.com)
An anonymous users shares a Vox report: A group of researchers has released a data set on nearly 70,000 users of the online dating site OkCupid. The data dump breaks the cardinal rule of social science research ethics: It took identifiable personal data without permission. The information -- while publicly available to OkCupid users -- was collected by Danish researchers who never contacted OkCupid or its clientele about using it. The data, collected from November 2014 to March 2015, includes user names, ages, gender, religion, and personality traits, as well as answers to the personal questions the site asks to help match potential mates. The users hail from a few dozen countries around the world. The researchers, Emil Kirkegaard, Oliver Nordbjerg, and Julius Daugbjerg ran software to "scrape" the information off OkCupid's website and then uploaded the data onto the Open Science Framework, an online forum where researchers are encouraged to share raw data to increase transparency and collaboration across social science.
Why did you post that drivel? The post was about OkCupid, not OkStupid.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I'm not going to name any names, but *several* Slashdot users appear not to be able to read summaries with any degree of accuracy - the data is not public, but only AVAILABLE TO OkCupid USERS (yes, that is what the summary actually says).
*Very* important distinction.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This record has been suspended"
https://osf.io/p9ixw/files/
Kirkegaard's other work (still available) on Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/a2yfn/
Interestingly enough, it works out to be great advertising for a really neat science site/service...
Presumably they have a tos which was likely violated. In the EU there is also copyrights on compilation of data which may also cause problems as OKC would own it as a collection.
Making it public IS permission.
No it is not. Perhaps you should read about copyright laws and privacy laws.
Bottom line, the data was not public available anyway: they used a scraping bot, obviously with one or more fake accounts. Which is most certainly against terms of usage.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The data was already public!
Also, only a moron would use their real name to create a profile on OkCupid. I met my wife on Match.com, and she didn't tell me her real name until our 2nd date. Many of these sites specifically recommend that you don't use your real name, and that you don't reuse a photo that is already online, since someone could then use Google Image search to find your Facebook profile.
a) It was not public. Access required an account (with associated agreement to their TOS).
b) European privacy laws says the data belongs to the users, and each one has to explicitly agree to its uses
This was a criminal act. At the very least these people should lose their academic titles or hope of getting one.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Actually I met a greek woman living in Germany (via ok cupid). She used her real name and was surprised that I did not. She was absolutely not aware that basically no one is using his real name on a web site, except perhaps Facebook or Linked in.
She was not dumb, the idea to use a nick simply never occurred to her.
On the other hand she was a bit strange ... she is a teacher for greek and ancient greek. While talking about the subjects she emphasized that greek is so complicated for foreigners because it has three genders. So I pointed out there are plenty of languages which have. She looked surprised and asked for an example. I said: e.g. German? She contemplated nearly a minute and then very surprised said: "Yes, true! German also has three genders!"
She spoke perfect german! And she never realized german has three genders just like greek!
The funny thing is: certain stuff is switching gender from language to language. E.g. a cat is female in german but male in french/italian. Or the moon, is female in latin languages and male in germanic languages. So it must have been a topic during her german learning ... nevertheless she never realized it.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Making it public IS permission.
1. It was not made public, it was only accessible after you created an account and hence agreed to their TOS.
2. European privacy law says even if made public, it can only be used for the purpose it was made public for (e.g. Phone-Book). Anything else requires explicit agreement by the data owner, and that is the respective person. No such agreement was obtained.
Seriously, understand the facts first. This was a criminal act.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You can't be stripped of an academic title. It isn't like having a license to practice law, or medicine.
Just to give everyone an example how fucked up genders are in German, and why it's nontrivial to learn for a foreigner: The simple sentence "The girl puts the milk on the table" would be in German, using pronouns, "It puts her on him".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Great, now North Carolina will outlaw speaking German.
from TFA: "The data dump did not reveal anyone's real name."
Usernames, etc, were revealed. A clever person might be able to find the true owner of an account if it was really important to him/her. Time will tell if any puppies were injured by this action.
...omphaloskepsis often...
You can be fired and unofficially blacklisted. Academia can be more political than D.C.
You are wrong. The university that gave you that title can remove it under certain circumstances, such as when you have damaged the reputation of the field it is in. I know, for example, of a PhD Lawyer that lost his PhD after being caught robbing a bank. It is not a legal procedure, it is an academic procedure. You may seek legal redress, but that usually fails. The same can happen when it turns out you falsified results.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It puts the lotion on it's skin...
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/
OSF has now suspended the entire repository, not just deleted the user datafile. Not sure why this is the case. So for now, the paper PDF will be available here: OKCupid_public_dataset_paper Edited to add: The repository is closed due to a DMCA request sent by OKCupid which is currently being investigated.
A good use of the DMCA in this case IMO. (Though surprised it worked overseas.)