‘You know how I know you’re gay?’ By your Facebook friends.
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There is an old proverb that says, “You can judge a person by the company he keeps.” The new version of that might read, “I can judge you by your Facebook friends.”
Researchers have developed computer programs that sift through Facebook friend lists to reveal information about users’ sexual orientation and political views. At MIT, two students created Project ‘Gaydar’ (their title, not mine), which predicts gayness based on the virtual friends one keeps:
Using data from the social network Facebook, [the students] made a striking discovery: just by looking at a person’s online friends, they could predict whether the person was gay. They did this with a software program that looked at the gender and sexuality of a person’s friends and, using statistical analysis, made a prediction….
“Even if you don’t affirmatively post revealing information, simply publishing your friends’ list may reveal sensitive information about you, or it may lead people to make assumptions about you that are incorrect,” said Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights organization in San Francisco. “Certainly if most or many of your friends are of a particular religious or political or sexual category, others may conclude you are part of the same category – even if you haven’t said so yourself.”
via Project ‘Gaydar’: An MIT experiment raises new questions about online privacy – The Boston Globe.
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Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
get ‘em up against the Wall…
There’s one in the spotlight
He Don’t Look Right to Me!?!?
get ‘em up against the Wall…
And that one looks Jewish
And that one’s a Coon!!
WHO LET ALL THIS RIFF-RAFF INTO THE ROOM???
There’s one smokin’ a joint!
And another with SPOTS!
If i had my way…
I’d have all of you SHOT!
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[...] A blogger writes about two MIT students who developed what they termed project “Gaydar.” They use friend lists along with other information to figure out a person’s sexual orientation. Quoting a source, the blogger says the following: “Even if you don’t affirmatively post revealing information, simply publishing your friends’ list may reveal sensitive information about you, or it may lead people to make assumptions about you that are incorrect,” said Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights organization in San Francisco. “Certainly if most or many of your friends are of a particular religious or political or sexual category, others may conclude you are part of the same category – even if you haven’t said so yourself.” [...]