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Liberal, Moderate or Conservative? See How Facebook Labels You

nytimes.com

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Re: Liberal, Moderate or Conservative? See How Facebook Labels You

#14

Post by Noseshine »

raverbashing wrote: post #6
bduerst wrote: post #4

TL;DR: for those hitting a paywall: 1) Go to https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences 2) Open the Lifestyle and culture tab under the Interests section 3) Find the US Politics box and see what Facebook thinks you are in the parentheses Edit: Apparently I am targeted for ads related to bubble wrap.

And of course you'll only have the "US Politics" box if you are in the US (but I get "equivalent" results)

I get nothing at all. Maybe that's because I have never clicked on or published anything related to politics, I only share "sciency" links (and none related to politics). I long ago decided that the best way to "lose friends and alienate people" [0] is to push political content to your network.

[0] To those (few?) who don't know, that's a(n inverted) book reference.

Re: Liberal, Moderate or Conservative? See How Facebook Labels You

#15

Post by m_eiman »

stordoff wrote: post #9

Apparently "Democracy" is one of the ad groups I'm targeted for, along with both "Republican Party (United States)" and "Democratic Party (United States)". Weirdly "In-N-Out Burger" is also listed, despite the fact they don't exist where I live (UK). The suggested ad. preferences are also a little odd - it's almost entirely hip-hop related for no apparent reason (Ghostface Killah/rza/Raekwon/gza/Ol' Dirty Bastard/KRS…

* I assume this refers to embedded Like buttons and similar?*

Probably, and most likely regardless of you actually clicking the button or not. I suppose they count a page view as a weak interest, a Like click as a strong interest.

Re: Liberal, Moderate or Conservative? See How Facebook Labels You

#18

Post by fennecfoxen »

cfmcdonald wrote: post #3

Thanks NYT for pointing me to this hilarious section of Facebook. My hobbies apparently include 'tears', and my only food and drink interest is 'bread roll'.

That is somewhat amusing (my hobbies include "bark"). More interestingly my fitness interests included "braid" (image of a braided rope goes here) - because I liked a page related to "braid". Unfortunately, I don't think this fitness-braid includes rewinding time.

The peril of strings.

Re: Liberal, Moderate or Conservative? See How Facebook Labels You

#20

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Interesting. I'm a moderate. Who knew?

Also interesting: I'm a Christian. I haven't been to a church in 10 or 15 years. I'm an agnostic. I tell people all the time that I'm not religious. But, because of my upbringing, I have a lot of Christian friends. From time-to-time I like their stuff. So Facebook says I'm a Christian. So I must be a Christian?

Facebook knows I have teenagers in the house, and that I have adult children.

The vast majority of this stuff, however, is about things I own: an iPad, my phone, the browser I use, the fact that I'm an early adopter. (How in the world could FB figure out I'm an early adopter?)

And of course, all of this will only get better over time. This is the extreme early stages of machine-based human classification.

It's a very strange experience having all of your posts, likes, and comments being judged by a machine, then told who you really are. Seductively frightening.

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