This is amazing and creepy at the same time. It's no wonder Data Scientist is one of the highest paying jobs in tech right now.
Facebook (and other similarly sized companies) have petabytes of data - what can they do with it? Imagine!
Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
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Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
#12The "Like" button is tracking users all over the web. Isn't it possible that their algorithms are correlating patterns in his web history for ad placement on FB too?
That's what the article is saying, yes.
Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
#13I remember a while back that Target had to back of a similar approach when it began sending out coupons to women that they suspected (w/ apparently a high degree of accuracy) were pregnant. The main anecdote was about a father who found out his daughter was pregnant because they started to receive the coupons. Target eventually backed off this approach (at least for newly pregnant women) because many of their custome…
I don't think they stopped it. Just adjusted it so the offers we're alongside random stuff (eg discounts on lawn mowers). That way people wouldn't freak out (presumably because they didn't know how much the company really knew about them) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h... Edit: Worth posting the whole quote (just found it). “With the pregnancy products, though, we learned that some women…
Offering alcohol to someone you know is pregnant, ugh.
Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
#14How facetious to post such an article on a web page that, upon scrolling to the end, will recommend to me an article about deadly meningitis hitting gay men in NYC ...
Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
#15Considering how many adult websites are adding social features (i.e. Like buttons), I assume 'Big Data' already has much more accurate information on a person's sexual interests than most people realize.
Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
#16How facetious to post such an article on a web page that, upon scrolling to the end, will recommend to me an article about deadly meningitis hitting gay men in NYC ...
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Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
#17Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
#18It's been about a year since I placed a FB ad but I was under the impression that whomever is placing the ad targets an audience not FB itself. If that is still correct then whoever was placing the "coming out" ad was acting more like an observant bartender mentioned in the article rather than an intelligent algorithm.
This is exactly right. I mean I think Facebook is as creepy as the next guy, but this article makes the unsubstantiated claim that Facebook guessed his orientation. Unless they have some secret new interface for their advertisers in this case it's unlikely. That said I'm sure they could predict this with a high level of accuracy if they wanted to.
Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
#19It's been about a year since I placed a FB ad but I was under the impression that whomever is placing the ad targets an audience not FB itself. If that is still correct then whoever was placing the "coming out" ad was acting more like an observant bartender mentioned in the article rather than an intelligent algorithm.
You are not entirely right, the advertiser chooses what audience to target but only Facebook knows exactly who is in that audience, the advertiser probably was advertising to people who support gay rights, etc.
Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they stopped it. Just adjusted it so the offers we're alongside random stuff (eg discounts on lawn mowers). That way people wouldn't freak out (presumably because they didn't know how much the company really knew about them) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h... Edit: Worth posting the whole quote (just found it). “With the pregnancy products, though, we learned that some women…
Offering alcohol to someone you know is pregnant, ugh.
Last I knew wine glasses were non-alcoholic. (From the quote) it seems they have carefully chosen not to market them alcohol directly.