MIT Project "Gaydar" Shakes Privacy Assumptions 508
theodp writes "At MIT, an experiment that identifies which students are gay is raising new questions about online privacy. Using data from Facebook, two students in an MIT class on ethics and law on the electronic frontier made a striking discovery: just by looking at a person's online friends, they could predict whether the person was gay. The project, given the name 'Gaydar' by the students, is part of the fast-moving field of social network analysis, which examines what the connections between people can tell us, from predicting who might be a terrorist to the likelihood a person is happy, fat, liberal, or conservative." MIT professor Hal Abelson, who co-taught the course, is quoted: "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."
Solution (Score:4, Funny)
Friend Everyone...
I'm still safe... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Solution (Score:4, Funny)
Friend Everyone...
At best that will categorise you as 'angsty teenager'.
At worst, as 'All things to all men - especially those free and easy men at MIT'.
It's simple really... (Score:5, Funny)
There are a couple of fields of personal data in facebook which state your marital status, and whether you are looking for a man or woman. It might just be possible from analyzing these details, which way you swing.
I buy my gaydar... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'm still safe... (Score:5, Funny)
If you're posting on Slashdot you've already been outed.
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:5, Funny)
They'll really have something when... (Score:3, Funny)
Sean
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well, that seems cut & dried... (Score:2, Funny)
Your coin toss program might work for we of the SchrÃdinger's Cat orientation, who don't yet know, however, based on my MIT friends, if it works in that environment, I don't see this would have any application in the real world.
MIT Project "Gaydar" Shakes Privacy Assumpitons (Score:2, Funny)
What's an Assumpiton?
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:5, Funny)
Or whether your last session originated from a Mac or not? And how about if you talk about, or have pictures of, Mazda Miatas in your profile?
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:5, Funny)
The.Real.World.S22E01.DSR.XviD-SAiNTS.avi [thepiratebay.org]
Re:Party games (Score:5, Funny)
Just like sleeping with large numbers of the same sex does not make one gay
fixed that for you
--Ted Haggard
My program predicts much more (Score:3, Funny)
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:3, Funny)
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:2, Funny)
Wait, I thought the gays liked being probed ?
Re:Well, that seems cut & dried... (Score:1, Funny)
Congrats! Your program seems to do a slightly better job than mine, but mine I consider a success, too:
I also once wrote a computer program that predicted coin tosses. I didn't check, but I'm pretty sure that if I had tossed a coin that the predictions would have been accurate half the time.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:1, Funny)
Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:5, Funny)
It's not worth it it only comes in lo-def and you only get a trial version that expires after a short period, but worst of all its closed source so you never know whats going on!
Oblig. Futurama (Score:4, Funny)
Amy: This is Bolt Rolands. Bolt is a hyper-sled racer with ten wins on the pro circuit.
Bolt: Hello, beautiful!
Bender: (whispers) I think she means ten wins on the gay circuit.
Bolt: (chuckling) I wish! Those cats can really fly.
Rick Romero is on the scene. (Score:4, Funny)
I think the MIT people are simply too infatuated with cult of technology.
This just in, people at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology love technology!
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I beg to differ (Score:3, Funny)
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:3, Funny)
[Kirk scenery chew]
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:5, Funny)
It was probably a surprise when it went in too.
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I beg to differ (Score:2, Funny)
That's right. By wearing that short dress America was just asking for it.
Re:I'm still safe... (Score:4, Funny)
+5 Virgin
Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Funny)
"And yet you registered for a slashdot account."
My social interaction is restricted to 4chan where my info will be respected.
Re:you are wrong. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:you are wrong. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Funny)
I just assumed you had a cold.
(And a speech-to-text interface.)
Re:FB's datamining for ads works the same way (Score:3, Funny)
Best.Euphemism. Ever.
Save your time and money (Score:2, Funny)
For the most part it gets poor reviews. A common criticism is that the world becomes uninhabitable in a few "billion years*". If a game is designed with such a critical flaw in the game-play, what other faults lurk beneath the surface?
Another major criticism is less than half the players "win" the game. If you are the type that hates to lose, I recommend using the reincarnation option. If your "religion" is "Hindu" or "Buddist" it's turned on automatically for you.
A word of warning: Do NOT start playing this game unless you have plenty of free time. A typical game lasts 70-80 "years" of in-game time, and that's without the "reincarnation" option. This is truly a game only for the idle rich.
*Short periods of time are commonly expressed in "seconds" and small multiples thereof. Larger periods of time are commonly expressed in "years."
The sound of gay men's voices and "Gaydar" (Score:2, Funny)
I first noticed that, several decades ago, when I would occasionally a hear gay men being interviewed on TV. They nearly always had that same distinctive quality to their voices. Whenever I would occasionally encounter someone who also sounded like that, my suspicions were sometimes later confirmed, by something I eventually heard or saw.
One of the few exceptions for my "Gaydar" is Rock Hudson. I have never noticed that gay quality to his voice.
I am probably somewhat better than average at picking up on subtle qualities to sounds. There are several people whose cars I hear a couple of times per day, and I can usually reliably recognize each of their vehicles as they pull up, without looking. I hear quite a few other vehicles throughout the day, yet I can usually tell the difference between the sound of their vehicles and all the other vehicles. That is despite the fact that some of the other vehicles, which I hear throughout the day, are of the same make, model, and possibly even the same engine type. I have also heard that many dogs can recognize the sound of their owners car from part way down the street. I wonder if blind people might have noticed what I am referring to. They frequently have a very well developed awareness of sounds.
My auditory "Gaydar" only works for detecting gay men, not for detecting lesbian women. I have not had enough good tests for my "Gaydar" to say precisely how accurate it is. I am just wondering how many other people have been noticing the same thing about most gay men's voices.
I do not feel any desire to go around "outing" people, or to possibly say something about someone which might turn out not be true, so I have always kept those observations to myself. Surely what I am describing must already be obvious to other people too.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:3, Funny)
No, each group of friend would probably only know one person with the same fullname. Now we have your name, friends, location, locations at certain times if the images have GPS in them, rough locations if no GPS (using flickr pool). We can do face matching to find out which one is you. We could find out your partner from these photos, with an error margin, and if they are on facebook we could get a lot from that, including here dob. From that we could find her address, and if you are sharing an address, your address. Or there might be a photo of you car in one of the pictures -> bam all the info we want.
Staying of fb is no longer a guarantee that we can't track you down.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:4, Funny)
I just assumed you had a cold.
(And a speech-to-text interface.)
He probably double the killer delete select all.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:4, Funny)
Re:MIT Gaydar should be Facebook app (Score:3, Funny)
I would expect that your tendency to burn in sunlight would indicate that you are in fact, a vampire.
Possible answers:
- You know, being a vampire isn't a black-and-white issue.
- That tendency to burn in sunlight is a bloody nuisance.
- I got HMHVV [wikipedia.org] via a blood donor.
- I don't bloody care whether it's a he or a she
Haha very funny. Laugh. Please try the veal.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:4, Funny)
> certainly most countries (not all) in continental Europe were more tolerant about sexual preference 50 years ago than most Americans today.
Indeed, the Germans INVENTED the fabulous pink triangle symbol that gays wear so proudly today!