Algorithm "Outs" Facebook Users

Lauren Admire

Rawrchiteuthis
Aug 8, 2008
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Algorithm "Outs" Facebook Users



A new algorithm released by MIT students can determine the sexual orientation of a person just by analyzing the sexual preferences of their friend networks.

It didn't begin as an insidious way to publicly out Facebook friends. The pair of MIT students who designed the algorithm did so for a class that was focused on ethics and law on the internet. The assignment was simple enough: Exactly how much information do we unwittingly reveal about ourselves when we friend people, "Like" certain topics, or become a fan of certain things?

The answer is: A lot more than you realized.

According to an analysis of friends networks on Facebook, students found that gay men had more gay friends than straight friends. Using that logic, a pair of MIT students created an algorithm that essentially "outs" people just by analyzing the breakup of their friends networks. Early tests of the equation successfully "outed" several gay people, just by analyzing the sexual preferences of their personal networks of friends. However, this same algorithm only worked to identify gay men; lesbians and bisexual men or women were not as easily outed.

"When they first did it, it was absolutely striking - we said, 'Oh my God - you can actually put some computation behind that,'" states Hal Aberson, a computer science professor at MIT. "That pulls the rug out from a whole policy and technology perspective that the point is to give you control over your information - because you don't have control over your information."

The project focused on the "homophily principle," basically the fact that like attracts like. If you're into dogs, you're more likely to friend people who also like dogs. If you're gay, you're more likely to hang out with people who are also gay. Using this basic principle, researchers are able to pick out a person's political affiliation, gender and even what breed of dog they prefer.

This really puts a new spin on internet privacy. It's not as easy as removing or hiding personal information on Facebook or Twitter. We can reveal truly personal information just by the internet crowd we pal around with.

Source: Popular Science [http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/20/project_gaydar_an_mit_experiment_raises_new_questions_about_online_privacy/?page=full]

(Image [http://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/4511843933/])


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The DSM

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Apr 18, 2009
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I knew joining the "I like men with hairy bums" group would come back to bite me on the arse someday...

I dont even use any Social networking anyway, the only site is use often are The Escapist and Youtube.
 

Tomster595

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Aug 1, 2009
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Hmmm. It's a bit useless at the moment, but the algorithm should be able to get updated and find out some really cool stuff in the future.
 

leonhart126

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Jul 16, 2009
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I honestly don't see how this works... I mean a persons facebook friends will be made up of a variety people in their lives including family and family friends friends of friends you've only met once or twice e.t.c. so for it to judge you purely based on that it must skim over a lot of gay people and perhaps even misinterpret some straight people as gay.
 

Brain_Cleanser

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Dec 18, 2009
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Is there anyway to get this on my facebook? I have some friends I need to out...
Anyway, I get what it's getting at, I think it's pretty funny and I almost remember hearing about this sometime last year, but I'd love to use this.
Especialy when it gets furthered.
Alright, Algorithm, find out my friends weird kinks...
 

Mr. Mike

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Mar 24, 2010
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I'm not even saddened by how completely unnecessary this is. I'm just impressed.
 

Caiti Voltaire

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Feb 10, 2010
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It amuses me how much creedence people put into arbitrary computer algorithms (or other science for that matter) that take a completely surface impression and pass it off as something scientific. It's almost like science has become a religion to some people.
 

Ham_authority95

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Dec 8, 2009
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Tomster595 said:
Hmmm. It's a bit useless at the moment, but the algorithm should be able to get updated and find out some really cool stuff in the future.
Agreed.

I'll think more of it when it can find terrorists and criminals instead of which gender you would have sex with.
 

sheic99

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Oct 15, 2008
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Ham_authority95 said:
Tomster595 said:
Hmmm. It's a bit useless at the moment, but the algorithm should be able to get updated and find out some really cool stuff in the future.
Agreed.

I'll think more of it when it can find terrorists and criminals instead of which gender you would have sex with.
There are about five or six programs that work fairly well to find Terrorists, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of them.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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Well...thats one hell of a diagram...still, there is only so much you can learn...but, it is certainly an intresthing theory
 

Ham_authority95

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sheic99 said:
Ham_authority95 said:
Tomster595 said:
Hmmm. It's a bit useless at the moment, but the algorithm should be able to get updated and find out some really cool stuff in the future.
Agreed.

I'll think more of it when it can find terrorists and criminals instead of which gender you would have sex with.
There are about five or six programs that work fairly well to find Terrorists, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of them.
Then that just makes this program an even more useless.
 

DividedUnity

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Oct 19, 2009
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And now over to the news room. Instead of developing technologies that could benifit mankind like medical equipment weve discovered how to find gays on facebook.

Seriously, what the hell. Fair play to them for figuring out how to alienate people even further.

This article reminds me of a Family Guy episode.

"If you try to take a blood sample and dangerous acid squirts out instead. Youve got a gay"
I quoted that because there are easier ways to find out if people are gay. Ask them

This is like saying weve developed a system to find out if someone is gay or not based on the bars they go to. Weve found that males who attend male strip clubs are fairly certain to be gay.

Thanks for that insight science. Now go cure cancer already
 

jamesworkshop

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Sep 3, 2008
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The project focused on the "homophily principle," basically the fact that like attracts like

However, this same algorithm only worked to identify gay men; lesbians and bisexual men or women were not as easily outed.

Doesn't that make it seem like the "homophily principle," doesn't work that well if it only applies to gay men
 

sheic99

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Oct 15, 2008
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Ham_authority95 said:
sheic99 said:
Ham_authority95 said:
Tomster595 said:
Hmmm. It's a bit useless at the moment, but the algorithm should be able to get updated and find out some really cool stuff in the future.
Agreed.

I'll think more of it when it can find terrorists and criminals instead of which gender you would have sex with.
There are about five or six programs that work fairly well to find Terrorists, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of them.
Then that just makes this program an even more useless.
The one I'm thinking of tracks known terrorists through credit cards and other such things. I really wish I could remember what it was called though. Sadly, I learned it in Sociology a year ago.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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So gay men are more likely to friend gay men?
Wow, I wonder how long it took them to figure that out...

I don't use social sites anyway, so whatever.
 

Joe Deadman

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Jan 9, 2010
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Overall its a pretty interesting system and shows just how unsecure data is on the internet although I guess it would sometimes give false positives.
It would be interesting to see how far they can go with this system.