A Cambridge University says your Facebook 'LIKES' can reveal your true personality
A study conducted by Cambridge University researchers was able to correctly deduce a user’s IQ, race, sexuality, drug use, political views or personality traits only using a record of the subjects, people and brands a person had liked on Facebook, even if not publically visible.
A study of 58,000 U.S. Facebook users, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, arises from an emerging discipline in which experts sift through extremely large digital data sets, such as collections of web searches or Twitter messages, for subtle patterns and relationships. It highlights the power and risks of digital demographics, which are the key to targeted online advertising, experts said.
Researchers can accurately and automatically predict sensitive personal traits of people on Facebook by analyzing the patterns of "Likes." Robert Lee Hotz reports on the News Hub. Photo: Getty Images.
Psychologist Michal Kosinski who led the U.K.'s Cambridge University study said.
"People who share the 'Likes' do not realize that they are sharing very private issues as well. The predictions based on 'Likes' are very fine-tuned and very much on the personal level."
Facebook's billion users can click that they "Like" anything from a movie or a public figure to a comment a friend posts about his cat. There was a median number of 68 "Likes," which are readily accessible online, posted by the users in the study.
LIKE MINDS -- Facebook users' choices correlate strongly with some real-world characteristics - Courtesy of WSJ (Click Image To Enlarge)
For this study, the researchers used demographic profiles, behavioral questionnaires and psychological tests volunteered by the users and then correlated that with "Likes" the volunteers had posted on the social-networking site. They set up a program to see whether these patterns could predict personal information about a group of people in the database based solely on the patterns of "Likes."
'People who share the 'Likes' do not realize that they are sharing very private issues as well,' said psychologist Michal Kosinski at the U.K.'s Cambridge University, who led the study (Click Image To Enlarge)
While far from perfect, the record of Facebook "Likes" was in many ways as accurate as a personality test, researchers said.
The researchers found, for example, that "Likes" for Austin, Texas; "Big Momma" movies; and the statement "Relationships Should Be Between Two People Not the Whole Universe" were among a set of 10 choices that, combined, predicted drug use. Meanwhile, "Likes" for swimming, chocolate-chip cookie-dough ice cream and "Sliding On Floors with Your Socks On" were part of a pattern predicting that a person didn't use drugs.
As a measure of the computer model's accuracy, the researchers were able to distinguish between Democrats and Republicans in 85% of the cases; between black and white people in 95% of the cases; and between homosexual and heterosexual men in 88% of the cases.
Jeffrey Chester, a privacy activist at the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit group that lobbies on media and telecommunications issues, said.
"This study should set off privacy alarm bells."
Michael Konsinski, the lead Cambridge University analyst working with Microsoft Research for the study, explained.
“The important point is that, on one hand, it is good that people’s behaviour is predictable because it means Facebook can suggest very good stories on your news feed. But what is shocking is that you can predict your political views or your sexual orientation. This is something most people don’t realise you can do.”
The computer software used to predict the traits could be used by anyone with training in data analysis, meaning that the same information could be collected by more dangerous organisations.
Konsinski added.
“Everyone carries around their Facebook ‘likes’, their browsing history and their search history, trusting corporations that it will be used to predict their movies or music tastes. But if you ask about governments, I am not sure people would like them to predict things like religion or sexuality, especially in less peaceful or illiberal countries.”
The findings could reignite concerns about how much private data can be collected by governments and private companies, especially via seemingly innocuous Facebook likes and online habits.
Facebook Inc. public-policy manager Fred Wolens said the ability to use public "Likes" to profile its users is "hardly surprising." Marketers and social scientists have long used online information, from ZIP Codes to musical tastes, to predict personal characteristics, he said.
Even so, many people who consent to sharing data online don't realize the additional intimate details that researchers can glean from it, said Helen Nissenbaum, director of the Information Law Institute at New York University, who wasn't involved in the study.
She said.
"When people today agree to volunteer information, they have no idea what can be inferred from that information."
COMMENTARY: This is another good reason why I never click the 'LIKE' button for anything. If I have to click the 'LIKE' button just to access an article, I decline and move on. Besides, why do I need to like something before I even read or see it?
Revelations that your 'LIKES' on Facebook could reveal your true personality, could become a bonanza for marketers, so you know that they are reading that study end-to-end to see what other things they can learn about Facebook users, to fine tune their advertising.
Privacy is always going to be an issue with all social networks. Everyone should become intimately familiar with the terms and conditions contained in Facebook's Terms of Use Agreement and Data Use Policy in order to protect themselves against privacy violations and missuse of your private information by third-party individuals, companies and marketing firms.
In Facebook's Data Use Policy you will find that Facebook receives a lot of information about you from numerous sources:
- Your clicks on Facebook
- Your searches on Facebook
- Your messages on Facebook
- Your computer and mobile devices
- From Facebook games and apps you use
- From data received from Facebook's affiliates and advertising partners.
Facebook can obtain the following information from your computer and mobile devices:
- Your IP address
- Your internet service
- Your location
- Type (including identifiers) of browser you use.
- Pages you visit.
- When you connect with a game, application or website - such as by going to a game, logging in to a website using your Facebook account, or adding an app to your timeline - we give the game, application, or website (sometimes referred to as just "Applications" or "Apps") your basic info (we sometimes call this your "public profile"), which includes your User ID and your public information. We also give them your friends' User IDs (also called your friend list) as part of your basic info.
- Your friend list helps the application make your experience more social because it lets you find your friends on that application. Your User ID helps the application personalize your experience because it can connect your account on that application with your Facebook account, and it can access your basic info, which includes your public information and friend list. This includes the information you choose to make public, as well as information that is always publicly available. If the application needs additional information, such as your stories, photos or likes, it will have to ask you for specific permission.
As you can readily see, Facebook, including other social networks you may have joined, have a slew of information about you, which they in turn share with their affiliaites, partners and advertisers to market products and services to you whenever you are logged into Facebook. All of this is going on seamlessly and stealthly, and you are not even aware of it.
The Cambridge University study only adds to the mountains of information Facebook has about you, and now adds an additional layer of privacy concerns that are sure to affect you in the foreseeable future.
Want to know what your "LIKES" say about you? Take this simple QUIZ put together by the folks at the WSJ by clicking HERE.
Courtesy of an article dated March 11, 2013 appearing in The Wall Street Journal and an article dated March 12, 2013 appearing in Trusted Reviews
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