Alarm Bells for Privacy – Facebook ‘likes’ predict personality

The findings should “ring alarm bells” for users, privacy campaigners said.

The study used 58,000 volunteers who alongside their Facebook “likes” and demographic information also provided psychometric testing results – designed to highlight personality traits.

The Facebook likes were fed into algorithms and matched with the information from the personality tests.

The algorithms proved 88% accurate for determining male sexuality, 95% accurate in distinguishing African-American from Caucasian-American and 85% for differentiating Republican from Democrat.

Christians and Muslims were correctly classified in 82% of cases and relationship status and substance abuse was predicted with an accuracy between 65% and 73%.

The links clicked rarely explicitly revealed these attributes. Fewer than 5% of gay users clicked obvious likes such as gay marriage, for instance.

Instead, the algorithms aggregated huge amounts of likes such as music and TV shows to create personal profiles.

via BBC News – Facebook ‘likes’ predict personality.

Support the Stonewall – Hold your peace campaign

If you are an advocate of equality (and let’s face it why wouldn’t you be?) then you should support the @StonewallUK campaign for #equalmarriage  – check out their campaign at Stonewall or if you are too lazy then here are bullet points!

On Tuesday 5 February 2013 MPs will vote on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill which will extend the legal form of marriage to same-sex couples. This is the first key parliamentary step towards securing marriage equality in England and Wales.

Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Write to your MP

Please write to your MP to let them know why you support marriage equality. If you hear back from your MP don’t forget to let them know by emailing [email protected]

You can find out who your MP is and how to contact them here.

Tweet your MP

Tweet your local MP to let them know you support #EqualMarriage.

You can find out if your MP uses Twitter here. If you hear from your MP via Twitter then again let Stonewall know by tweeting them at @stonewalluk.

And don’t forget that you can also share one of their fantastic e-postcards with them!

Show your support for equality online

Stonewall have a huge selection of Twitter and Facebook profile pictures, Facebook banners and e-postcards that you can share online.  Make sure your friends and family know that you’ve said ‘I Do’ to equal marriage. Check them out at the stonewall website http://www.stonewall.org.uk/

Donate

Your donation will help Stonewall tackle this very well-funded campaign against equality and help us continue to push for the extension of the legal form of marriage to same-sex couples.

Become a Friend of Stonewall

Stonewall will be campaigning hard over the coming months to ensure that MPs and members of the House of Lords support this final modest measure of legislative equality.

They need your help to do this. You can become a Friend of Stonewall by donating just £5 a month.

Follow Stonewall

And don’t forget to follow Stonewall on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date with the campaign – tweet about the campaign using #equalmarriage.

via Stonewall.